Spam started out as a novel idea to get an advertiser's message out to many people virtually free. Then came the idea of harvesting email addresses from the web, primarily from usenet or news groups as they are now known.  Order something online and you are usually required to give an email address. Addresses get sold or given to other advertisers. Eventually, they WILL get your address!

            Most people use Outlook Express for their personal email. Microsoft has an unadvertised tool which can eliminate ALL the spam. You have an Address Book in Outlook Express. Did you ever wish you could eliminate all email from anyone NOT in your Address Book? You can! Below I will give the procedure, with some screen shots, stepping you through the process.
 

            Above we see my personal configuration of Outlook Express with my inbox selected. In another window open YOUR Outlook Express then look up top and click on the "Tools" item. Then point to Message Rules then click on Mail... Next is a screen showing the Message Rules.
 

            If you have any message rules already "Remove" them so your screen looks like the above. Basic rules were a good thing until advertisers found they could hide or change the from address for each block of spam they send out. Basic rules work but are not very effective today. What we want to do is make a rule that deletes all email (SPAM)  from anyone NOT in your address book. First, click on "New..." to create a new rule and select "Where the from line contains people" in box 1 and then select "Delete it" in box 2. Below is a picture of what it will look like.
 

            Now it gets trickey. In box 3 above click on the words "contains people". This should bring up the following screen.
 

            Now click on the "Address Book" button. You should get the following.
 

            Click on the first person in your address book then scroll down to the bottom and, while holding down the "Shift Key" click on the last person in the address book. This should turn all the addresses blue selecting them all. Next click on the "From->" buttom in the middle to copy them all to the right side. It should look like the following.

Note: This address book contains only a small sample of some of the people in My address book. Please don't abuse them!
 

            Click on OK and you will be back to your "Select People" window. See it below.
 

            Since you now have entries in your list click on the "Options..." button. This bring up the critical screen that allows you to use reverse logic to only allow emails from people in your address book. Below, select the radio button in #1 to say "Message does not contain the people below" What you have just said is "If you are not in my address book you will be automatically deleted. It should look like the below screen.
 

            Now click on "OK" for each of the screens until you are back to your normal email window and ANY email you get from ANYONE not in your Address Book will automatically make its way to the deleted items folder.

            A final and important note… Only adding a new person to your Address Book does not automatically mean they will now be allowed into your inbox. You must modify the rule after they are added to the address book.

            Click on “Tools – Message Rules – Mail… as we did at the beginning. Here you can see your rule as it was created. You may click on the blued out list in the bottom area to modify the rule. Here you may manually add another address or, if you have added them to your Address Book, you may add them to your list from the address book as we did above except only choosing one address instead of all of them.

            If you frequently get messages you don’t want deleted you must scan your deleted items box and then manually delete the items. After you have run for a few weeks and are comfortable with the procedures and results you can click “Tools – Options – Maintenance…” and select to “Empty messages from the ‘Deleted Items’ box on exit”. Now all your unwanted items are gone each time you close Outlook Express.