9.17.6.1 Blacklists and Whitelists

Variable: spam-use-blacklist

Set this variable to t if you want to use blacklists when splitting incoming mail. Messages whose senders are in the blacklist will be sent to the spam-split-group. This is an explicit filter, meaning that it acts only on mail senders declared to be spammers.

Variable: spam-use-whitelist

Set this variable to t if you want to use whitelists when splitting incoming mail. Messages whose senders are not in the whitelist will be sent to the next spam-split rule. This is an explicit filter, meaning that unless someone is in the whitelist, their messages are not assumed to be spam or ham.

Variable: spam-use-whitelist-exclusive

Set this variable to t if you want to use whitelists as an implicit filter, meaning that every message will be considered spam unless the sender is in the whitelist. Use with care.

Variable: gnus-group-spam-exit-processor-blacklist

Add this symbol to a group’s spam-process parameter by customizing the group parameters or the gnus-spam-process-newsgroups variable. When this symbol is added to a group’s spam-process parameter, the senders of spam-marked articles will be added to the blacklist.

WARNING

Instead of the obsolete gnus-group-spam-exit-processor-blacklist, it is recommended that you use (spam spam-use-blacklist). Everything will work the same way, we promise.

Variable: gnus-group-ham-exit-processor-whitelist

Add this symbol to a group’s spam-process parameter by customizing the group parameters or the gnus-spam-process-newsgroups variable. When this symbol is added to a group’s spam-process parameter, the senders of ham-marked articles in ham groups will be added to the whitelist.

WARNING

Instead of the obsolete gnus-group-ham-exit-processor-whitelist, it is recommended that you use (ham spam-use-whitelist). Everything will work the same way, we promise.

Blacklists are lists of regular expressions matching addresses you consider to be spam senders. For instance, to block mail from any sender at ‘vmadmin.com’, you can put ‘vmadmin.com’ in your blacklist. You start out with an empty blacklist. Blacklist entries use the Emacs regular expression syntax.

Conversely, whitelists tell Gnus what addresses are considered legitimate. All messages from whitelisted addresses are considered non-spam. Also see BBDB Whitelists. Whitelist entries use the Emacs regular expression syntax.

The blacklist and whitelist file locations can be customized with the spam-directory variable (~/News/spam by default), or the spam-whitelist and spam-blacklist variables directly. The whitelist and blacklist files will by default be in the spam-directory directory, named whitelist and blacklist respectively.