It's not that the message has to be downloaded to delete it, but if you
are checking for words in the message body (or has attachment), the
message has to be downloaded for OE to tell if the message body contains
the words (or has an attachment). By then it's too late to not download
it. This isn't a limitation of OE but rather a limitation of the POP3
mail servers.

If you restrict your checking to items in the message header (From, To,
CC, Subject, size), POP3 servers support downloading just the header and
then OE can do just that, check the header and if it meets your criteria
delete the message from the serve without downloading the whole message.

The other thing to do is see of your ISP offers filtering on the mail
server. Mine does and it typically catches 95 to 99% of the spam so
that OE never sees it.

--

Mike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm


"jim" wrote in message
...
thanks for the explanation. Not that it 'solves' anything, but at
least I
know now. Too bad M$ can't help their users better by eliminating the
need
to download it in order to delete it. Of course, it's too bad the
email
providers can't do more to prevent such junk mail from being sent in
the
first place.

"Bruce Hagen" wrote:

What sort of rule? Delete it from server only works for To, From,
Subject,
Attachment & Size rules. If this is a Message Body rule, it must be
downloaded in order for the rule to be able to see the message and
the rule
apply, so Delete it is the only choice.

As far as the new mail icon, it doesn't matter what folder it goes
to, it is
still considered new mail.

Some Message Rule Ideas:
http://www.mindspring.com/~majik/messagerules.htm

Some tips:
http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/tips/rules.htm

Message Rules not working?:
http://www.tomsterdam.com/insideoe/faqs/why.htm#rules
--
Bruce Hagen
MS MVP - Outlook Express
~IB-CA~

"jim" wrote in message
...
I have setup message rules for OE6 that only work if I choose the
"delete
mail" option. If I choose the "delete from server" option, the
mail
continues to come to my inbox. Has anyone figured this out or is
anyone
aware of this being a known bug? Now - my system tray indicates
that I
have
new mail when something comes in even tho it went directly to my
Deleted
folder (as directed to by the Rule), but I don't want that to
happen,
since I
didn't really want to see the mail at all.