Spam is Killing Me - Can I use GMail as a spam filter?

I'm getting at least 50 Viagra ads a day and it's driving me insane.

I currently have a hosted MS Exchange account and a Gmail account. My Gmail account forwards to my Exchange account. Both of my addresses are used evenly, and it has been really nice to have all of my e-mail end up in my Exchange box. I like replying from one address consistently, which is my Exchange address.

Spam sent to my Gmail address is always caught, where spam sent to my Exchange is getting passed straight through to me. I don't want to have two spam filtration systems that have quarantines that I need to check frequently for false positives.

Here is my question:

Can I setup my MX records such that all e-mail sent to my Exchange address is forwarded to my Gmail account, which will then forward it to my Exchange account? Kind of like using Gmail as the middle man.

Kirk Ouimet

Posted 2009-11-12T23:16:40.363

Reputation: 2 615

6You shouldn't be taking Viagra 50 times a day. ..... Oh, wait. – Alex – 2010-03-17T14:41:35.523

11Only 50?! Lucky you. – Mark Henderson – 2009-11-12T23:44:49.450

3Some people just don't know when they're well off. – None – 2009-11-13T00:36:10.897

Answers

Look into the Postini services from Google.

Jay Riggs

Posted 2009-11-12T23:16:40.363

Reputation:

This! It works exactly as the asker posed in the summary question. You'll pay $1 per month per user, but my office is very happy with it. – astrostl – 2009-11-13T00:42:18.717

That's good to hear because when the subscription to our current spam filter service expires we're going to seriously look at this. – None – 2009-11-13T00:48:56.763

Thanks, working on a Postini implementation now - hopefully it goes smoothly. – Kirk Ouimet – 2009-11-13T08:04:39.600

Yes, Gmail can filter your spam if you route all your mail through it. But you will need to forward your mail a couple of times. If you prefer Gmail, then you can skip steps 2 and 3!

Set all your mailboxes to forward all mail to a single target Gmail address.
- Don't read mail in those mailboxes anymore. The target Gmail address works as your spam filter for all your above mailboxes.
In that target Gmail account, set up a rule to forward everything to a new mailbox. This rule will forward everything except the caught spam, and that's exactly what you wanted.
- This could be a new Gmail account or a new Exchange account; whatever you prefer. The address of this mailbox is irrelevant and should be kept secret.
Use the new account as your only account, and set it up so that the sender and reply addresses are whatever you want your "official" address to be (regardless of the actual address of this account).
- Only tell people your "official" address, not the address of this account.

Now, any mail to any account will be filtered by Gmail and then sent to your new account.

Torben Gundtofte-Bruun

Posted 2009-11-12T23:16:40.363

Reputation: 16 308

This worked very well for me: My Internet/Email ISP allows users to set up a certain number of "alias" email accounts that will be redirected your regular "official" email account. So I made one with what I wanted my new mailbox to be and had Gmail forward everything that wasn't spam to it. Next I updated my email address with friends and businesses I wanted to have it. Lastly I asked my ISP to make my email alias my real email account and disabled the Gmail forwarding. Updating with everyone was a lot of work, but the result was worth it to me. Thank you. – martineau – 2016-01-21T02:02:48.247

1Clever, free way to utilise superb spam filtering with gmail! +1 – Piotr Kula – 2014-05-01T19:27:07.563

Not exactly what you asked, but we block about 95% of spam with stock Exchange 2007 just by using the Spamhaus block list at no cost. Are you using any block lists? Can you control the blocklist in the hosted Exchange?

Knox

Posted 2009-11-12T23:16:40.363

Reputation: 1 168

I can't - they have everything on lock down. I wish I admin'd my own Exchange... – Kirk Ouimet – 2009-11-12T23:53:50.823

But if you asked them about enabling the spam filter on the Exchange, perhaps something would happen? (on the other hand, these new viagra spams lately seems to be kinda ûber in getting through - but they'll be squashed sooner or later) – Oskar Duveborn – 2009-11-13T00:19:39.583

Yes, you can do this! Not at the DNS (MX record) level, though. Google will not accept mail addressed to your domain, so you still need your own mail server to receive it, but you can then forward it to Google - and have Google forward it back to you. The spam will not be forwarded.

See http://mboffin.com/post.aspx?id=1636 for full instructions, but essentially you just need to:

Set up a GMail account to forward to your email address.
Set up a server-side forward rule in Exchange (or Outlook) to forward to GMail unless it was forwarded from GMail to begin with (to avoid an infinite loop).

EMP

Posted 2009-11-12T23:16:40.363

Reputation: 4 688

Doesn't work. However, look at mailfoundry.com. You can setup an account and filter up to 10 email addresses for free. I've been using them for 4 years now and I've never had a problem or complaint with their filtering.

unknown (google)

Posted 2009-11-12T23:16:40.363

Reputation:

I may try these guys... – Kirk Ouimet – 2009-11-12T23:54:23.210

The question probably belongs on SuperUser, but...

How are you accessing you Exchange email? If you're using Outlook, you could use one of the spam filtering plug-ins for that. If you're using web access, you're stuck with whatever the hosting provider is doing (or not doing).

If you wanted all your mail to go through Gmail, you'd have to use that as your primary address, forward all the messages from there to your Exchange account, and have a Reply-To address set on your Exchange mailbox that's your Gmail address.

Edit: your comments make it sound like this hosted service is used for your company. If so, isn't there any pressure you can exert on the vendor to add spam-filtering?

Ward - Reinstate Monica

Posted 2009-11-12T23:16:40.363

Reputation: 687

Unfortunately a lot of people are already using my Exchange address. I guess I could create another Exchange account and have my current one forward to Gmail and then back to the other one... – Kirk Ouimet – 2009-11-12T23:35:34.897

If it's to do with MX and Mail Forwarding, SF is the correct place for it – Mark Henderson – 2009-11-12T23:45:48.637

You can try ASSP http://assp.sourceforge.net , install on vps or dedicated server and point your MX to assp. Assp will forward your email to hosted MS Exchange.

moefid

Posted 2009-11-12T23:16:40.363

Reputation:

You can check out SAFENTRIX. Has both Free (Standard) and paid edition and is as maintenance free as anything can be.

alpmer

Posted 2009-11-12T23:16:40.363

Reputation: