KB / Account Control Panel / Mail :: Filters / Razor (No Longer Supported)
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OBSOLETE info about Using the Razor Spam Filter (historical purposes only)
Note: Razor is no longer supported, and has been replaced with our ['https://panel.dreamhost.com/index.cgi?tree=mail.junk' Junk Filter feature]. The following article is obsolete and is listed for historical purposes only.
All DreamHost accounts have Razor spam filtering capabilities!
Razor is a spam filter that uses a continuously-updated centralized database of known spam to decide whether or not incoming mail is spam.
To add Razor spam filtering to a mailbox, just go to our "Mail > Filters and Spam" section and choose a mailbox. Then check off the box next to "Filter spam with Razor", and click "Change Spam Settings"!
Within about an hour the spam filter will be set up on that mailbox.
There are two different ways to set up our Razor filter, depending if you use POP3 to check your email or IMAP/Webmail.
POP3
Our server will just add the header X-Razor: SPAM to messages matched as spam. It will then leave the message in your INBOX. This is so that you can then set your POP3 email client on your computer to do what you'd like with your spam. We have to do it like this since POP3 only reads the INBOX off the mail server.
IMAP/Webmail
There are three server mail folders you set up when turning on Razor for IMAP or webmail:- Filter Spam To: this is the folder Razor will put messages it decides are spam, as opposed to your Inbox.
- Unblocked Spam: if you'd like to help improve the central Razor database, you can! Just move spams that razor misses in this folder, and an automated DreamHost robot will submit them to Razor periodically, and then delete them from the folder.
- Blocked Non-Spam: although this should basically never happen, if you do find a non-spam accidentally filtered into your spam folder, you can put a copy of it in here (as well as moving it into your Inbox) and our robot will tell Razor that it made a boo-boo (and again, delete the messages from the folder)! That will hopefully cut down on mistakes in the future..
Can I use Razor spam filtering with my own procmail set up?
Note: Razor is no longer supported, and has been replaced with our ['https://panel.dreamhost.com/index.cgi?tree=mail.junk' Junk Filter feature]!
When you add the Razor filter to a mailbox, the following is added to the DreamHost-generated .procmailrc:# filter 0 - first tag message with razor :0 Wc | razor-check # filter 0 :0 Wa .dh-spam/So, if you want, you can actually set up razor on a mailbox without using our web interface to do it. Just add those lines into your current procmail recipes! If you're not already a procmail expert though, please just use our web panel.
However, you won't be able to use our special "unblocked spam" and "blocked non-spam" folders unless you set up your Razor filter for our web panel. The reason for this is simply our little DreamHost spam-trolling robot won't know to look in your folders for messages to report to Razor if you haven't told us through the web panel!
Can I use Razor spam filtering with POP3?
Note: Razor is no longer supported, and has been replaced with our ['https://panel.dreamhost.com/index.cgi?tree=mail.junk' Junk Filter feature]!
Yes! And there are two ways to handle it.
One, you can choose to just add a header to incoming spam that marks it as spam. Our server will still put it in your Inbox, but now there'll be a special X-Razor: SPAM line added. Most email clients will then allow you to set up a filter that looks for that header.
Two, you can have our server filter spam for you into a "spam" folder (as though you used IMAP or Webmail), but you won't be able to look into your filtered spam folder or report missed spams to the Razor server via POP3.
POP can only read the Inbox folder off our server, and since this filtering is done on the server-side, it puts messages into other server folders before your POP3 email client downloads them to your home computer. Note that a spam folder will count towards your disk usage, even if you use POP3.
If you choose the second option and would like to be able to check what's being filtered into your spam folder periodically, what we recommend you do is either use our web-mail system, or switch your email client to use IMAP. IMAP allows you to view all your mail folders on the server!
