Apple users don’t need to worry about the viruses and worms that infect their friends’ PCs, but they can’t escape spam. One easy change in Apple Mail’s preferences can help reduce the amount of spam you receive.

Spammers often use HTML code to determine if an email address is valid, and therefore worth more spam. The code checks whether images or objects are successfully retrieved as an email loads in Apple Mail.

To frustrate this, simply uncheck the “Display images and embedded objects in HTML messages” option in the Viewing pane of Mail’s preferences.

When an email with HTML images arrives, a small button will appear in the top right of the email, allowing you to download the images if the email comes from the trusted source (like my daily headlines email from BBC News). If it’s spam, you can just bin it, knowing that you have not given the spammer the satisfaction of finding a live email address.

If you are really plagued with the stuff, you could also look at installing one of these third-party spam filters for added protection.

Similar Posts:

• Viewing HTML messages in Apple Mail
• Apple Mail spoofing problem
• WebKit’s HTML in Mail 2.0
• How Mail.app frustrates email marketers
• JunkMatcher: free extra spam protection

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This entry was posted on Saturday, 20th August, 2005 at 9:11 am and is filed under Apple Mail, Apple Mail Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.