I’ve written a couple of times singing the praise of, in my opinion the best Outlook spam tool, SpamBayes. So in this tip, I figured I would focus on how to fine tune the settings for Outlook.

The first thing you will want to do is add the Spam column (available under the User Defined list) in your Outlook data folders which receive most of your mail. I would recommend the Inbox, Junk Suspects and Junk E-Mail folders at the least. Once you add this column, you will be able to see the spam “score” for each item. The lower the number the better.

After about a week, review your Junk Suspects folder and sort by the Spam column. Take note of where the highest concentration of spam is and where no false positives (items flagged as spam which are not spam) were identified, for example higher than 50%, 60%, etc. Now click on the SpamBayes Manager which is located on the Outlook Toolbar. Modify the settings for definite spam to match the number you noted above. This will tell SpamBayes to move these items directly to your Junk E-Mail.

Personally, I have found setting a tolerance of 15% for possible spam and 45% for definite spam works best, but run the test above to find your own magic settings. Either way, taking a short amount of time to set up and continually fine tuning your spam settings is the best way to keep your Inbox clean.