Installation and first steps

  1. Close any Outlook windows that are open.
  2. Run the msi-file. This will begin the installation process. Simply follow the on-screen instructions. For WinXP you need administrative privileges for the installation, for Windows Vista and Windows 7 User Account Control asks for permissions to install the filter.
  3. Start Microsoft Outlook again.
  4. After installing, you'll see a new ribbon tab "Spartacus" with two buttons to show the SpartacusFilter log file and to display this User Manual (Help):
    Ribbon Button of Spartacus
  5. After starting please move all (previously) identified spam mails into the "Junk E-mail" folder. Now you're ready to filter some spam! Whenever new mail is received, SpartacusFilter checks each one and determines whether or not it's spam. If it's spam, it is automatically moved into the Junk E-mail folder. Otherwise it remains in the Inbox. When you identify new spam at the Inbox move them into the Junk E-mail folder. You can highlight multiple items and move them all at once if you want.
    Delete Spam
    The more spam you delete, the better Spartacus is at identifying it. The probability for detecting spam mails is more than 99%.
  6. It's a good idea to periodically check the Junk E-mail folder for real email that was misidentified. That's what a "false positive" is - a real email that is falsely identified as spam. Please move the mail back to the Inbox. The Filter then corrects its statistics.
    correct False Positives
    Typically, Spartacus gets very few false positives, less than 0.1 %.

Configuration and optimization

To prevent some confusion we recommend to disable the Outlook Junk Mail Filtering by setting the Junk Filter to "No Automatic Filtering. Mails from blocked senders is still moved to the Junk E-mail folder." (See "Junk"->"Junk E-mail-Options...")

Spartacus writes a logfile for all spam removal actions. To display these information click on "Show Spartacus Log" at the Spartacus ribbon tab.

Known limitations

SpartacusFilter for Outlook 2010/2013 does not support IMAP- and HTTP-Accounts for the moment. You can run SpartacusFilter with Microsoft Exchange and SMTP/POP3 servers only.