filtering email with GIF content

I am once again trying to find the perfect email program. Tbird is a resource hog, Outlook is Outlook, didn't like The Bat, Pegasus had bugs, Opera Mail filters are clumsy. It takes more time to re-sort in Mailwasher than it takes to delete junk from unfiltered mail.

I am currently using Eudora 1.5 because it is light on resources and lacks "features" (I'm happy with text). I would, however, like some means of deleting anything from the server that contains a GIF. Most of the spam that gets through the ISP's filters has GIF content. It is also why email takes so long to download.

The rare case where legitimate mail might have a GIF could be dealt with in a whitelist. If I lose an occasional message, so what?

 

You might find these comparative reviews helpful.

I use Foxmail. You can sent up filters, with the option of deleting mail that matches the criteria directly from the server, and you can set up a whitelist, but I'm not sure you can combine those two functions.

The download link at that site is broken; you can get Foxmail here.

 

As far as I know, this is not directly possible with email clients (or probably with any POP3 email client) because the client doesn't normally "see" the attachments until it downloads the entire message.

However, with that said, some ISPs and/or email providers add headers to a message if it contains one or more attachments.

For example, I just sent a test message with two attachments to my email provider (FastMail.fm). The server added two headers:
X-Attached: one.pdf
X-Attached: two.doc

If your email provider does this for you, then you should be able to create a filter that searches this header for .gif or whatever and, if found, delete the message on the server.

I think that this is as good as you're going to get. Also, I can't think of any way to delete the attachments on the server yet keep the message itself.

It isn't easy to find the perfect email client. I too had to search and trial many email clients prior to finding the one I'm satisfied with.
Good luck with your search.

 

Well if you have access or any chance to avoid extension based filtering i would recommend using a file-content-based filter and not a extension based. You can rename GIF files to whatever...

For instance if you can run perl scripts on the server you could do something like this:

if (GETDW(0) eq 0x38464947)
{
$FileType = "GIF8-Picture";
# DO YOUR STUFF HERE
}

sub GETDW
{
my $WOffset;
my $Byte1;
my $Byte2;
my $Byte3;
my $Byte4;
my $DWord1;
$WOffset = $_[0];

#print "<br>in function GETDW: $WOffset\n";

$Byte1 = substr("@filedata",$WOffset,1);
$Byte2 = substr("@filedata",$WOffset+1,1);
$Byte3 = substr("@filedata",$WOffset+2,1);
$Byte4 = substr("@filedata",$WOffset+3,1);

#print "Byte1: ",ord($Byte1);
#print "Byte2: ",ord($Byte2);

$DWord1 = ord($Byte1) | (ord($Byte2)<< | (ord($Byte3)<<16) | (ord($Byte4)<<24);

#print "DWord1: ",$DWord1;

return $DWord1;

}

 

OE user here but I use a nifty mail checker that will show only as many lines of an email as you set(50),then manually delete the ones I don't want at the server.

Palmail.

http://www.mirwoj.opus.chelm.pl/winfreeware/palmail.html

 

I just loaded Foxmail. First impression is that it solves the problems. I can set the filter to trap all or specific attachments, send them to a folder, or even delete from the server without downloading.

The ability to filter by attachment should cut inbox spam by about 80% since nearly all the spam that gets past the ISP filter has gif content.

I am also impressed with the layout, speed, and resource load. The download is little more than half the size of Tbird. The filters are easier to configure than Tbird or Opera.

Thanks for the tip!

Doug

 

Hmmm,thanks for that.Might give Foxmail a go myself.