By default, Yahoo! Mail comes built-in with a SpamGuard feature where it can perform algorithms to detect whether or not a particular piece of e-mail is spam. While this does not work 100% of the time and may even cause some false positives, many people find this blocking effective.

By default, Yahoo! Mail stores e-mail it thinks are spam in the Bulk Folder for a month. This way you can go through the Bulk Folder and determine whether or not the messages truly are spam. If you see some messages improperly marked as spam you can move them back to the Inbox.

If you have a huge spam problem, you may wish to just automatically delete these messages. Granted, you might miss a few legitimate e-mails, but if you wish to enable this feature:

(Note this tip was updated on 12/30/05. Yahoo! Mail's interface is subject to change.)

1. Click the "Options" link.

2. Underneath "Mail Options", click "Spam Protection".

3. If you have never set this feature up before, you will go through a wizard interface. Either way, click the "Immediately delete these messages upon receipt" radio button.

4. Click "Continue" or "Save Changes", depending on whether or not you are in the wizard interface.

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