[Spambayes] Initial thoughts - SpamBayes + Gmail w/ IMAP *and* POP3

skip at pobox.com skip at pobox.com
Sat Feb 9 06:55:19 CET 2008


Okay, so tonight I got the SpamBayes IMAP filter working with Gmail after
applying a patch that Dave Abrahams submitted about a year ago.  (I've yet
to check that in, but will do it tomorrow.)  My current setup is Gmail w/
POP3 for download and SpamBayes filtering on my laptop.  To this I added the
IMAP filter.  I haven't done too much with it yet, but it works.  After a
fashion.  I'm not particularly keen on the way the IMAP filter operates, but
that's probably just my inexperience with IMAP and the way it forces you to
work.

I wound up creating two labels, "sbham" and "sbspam".  Those appear as
folders to the IMAP filter.  Any message I wanted it to train on get one of
those labels.  I have it classify messages in both my INBOX and Spam
folders.  Unfortunately, I tend to dump my spam periodically via the Gmail
interface.  Most messages with the sbspam label wind up in my Spam folder.
I'll have to get in the habit of not deleting spam tagged with that label so
I wind up with something to (re)train on later.

Since Gmail has its own spam filter (which you can't disable) I can't help
but feeling that the two systems are going to duke it out a bit.  We'll see
how that works.

While I think about it, I also have a Yahoo! Mail address.  That tool
supports IMAP as well, but you have to upgrade to a "premium" mail service.
I imagine it's not all that expensive, but I'll continue to experiment with
free mail options for now.

Skip


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