Email Magician Read Me File

Welcome to Email Magician, the first utility of its kind (at least the first that we know about).

Important Note: Please read the documents in this folder about Spammer Address Collection and FileMaker™ Exporting features, and also the special information about new features in versions 1.5 through 1.8.

Email Magician 1.6 offers more filters: more than 250 new spam filters, a new Valid Accounts Filter, and more filter options for unregistered users. In version 1.6 unregistered users can still write only one of each type of filter per day, but that number now comes to 15 filters per 24-hour period.

What it does
Email Magician is a one-button solution to managing your email. The software automatically creates filters, mailboxes, and nicknames (address book entries) with one click. You can generate hundreds of filters in the time it takes to construct one manually. Email Magician creates mailboxes to go with your new filters, and can also add new nicknames to your address book corresponding to your new mailboxes.

But it doesn't stop there. This "Swiss Army Knife" for Eudora® includes powerful spam filtering and comes with hundreds of spam filters that check your incoming mail for over 1,000 spam characteristics. In addition to built-in spam filters, the program also offers Spammer Address Collection, an option that tracks spammers who may be targetting you in particular, and trashes their messages before they even reach the other spam filters.

Email Magician lets you organize and edit your filters, mailboxes, and nicknames too. The program also offers one-click archiving of mailboxes, as well as automated archiving of messages within mailboxes exceeding a specified message limit, or of entire mailboxes that haven't been modified within a certain time-period

Email Magician provides an intelligent Urgent Filter note-pad where you jot down phrases and email addresses that tell Email Magician to override existing filters and gather all your "to do" items into a single mailbox for quick disposition.

Email Magician automates many email "house-cleaning" chores one performs periodically -- besides message and mailbox archival (including exporting to FileMaker, and stripping html from messages), the software offers deletion of empty mailboxes and "orphan-filters," meaning filters targeting missing mailboxes, creation of filters and/or mailboxes for all nicknames in your address books, creation of "group" addresses for use with Eudora's "Intersects Nickname" options, and much more.

Never make filters, mailboxes, or nicknames in Eudora again! Get into the habit of running Email Magician regularly (every week or every day!) to keep your inbox and outbox clean -- or any other boxes that you tell Email Magician to monitor. And use Email Magician's "Maintenance" options to keep your Eudora folder tidy and your mailboxes organized.

Things you need to know
The first time you launch the software, it will ask you to locate your Eudora Folder. The folder referred to is usually NOT the folder in which your Eudora application resides. Rather, it is the folder in which Eudora stores its “Eudora Settings” file, as well as where it maintains a folder named “Mail Folder” in which it places all your incoming and outgoing mail. It is often named “Eudora Folder” and often is found in your System Folder but it doesn’t need to be. If you have an alias to it in your System Folder (or elsewhere) you only need select the alias.

If you maintain multiple Eudora Folders, you will be able to add them to a menu within Email Magician.

Also, the first time you launch the software, it will display the help screens (tutorial). You should read that information; it won't take long. If you already know how to use Email Magician you can bypass the initial tutorial by holding down the command key during the launching process.

You are also strongly urged to read the Tips either from within Email Magician (the “Tips” window) or within the “Other Documentation” folder in your Email Magician folder. This goes for the Urgent Filters help too. You can find it in the program when you start working with Urgent Filters, or read a copy of the same information in the “Other Documentation” folder. Finally, you should read the little red help text that appears whenever you move the cursor over an object. But, you can still make quite effective use of the program if you read ONLY the first screen of the tutorial.

Henceforth, every time you launch Email Magician, it will scan your Eudora folder for Filters, Mailboxes, and Nicknames. The more of these that you have, the longer the scanning process will take. There is a spinning globe on the screen during this process. You are advised not to interrupt this scanning process.

Just to reassure you, Email Magician doesn't make any changes to the contents of your Eudora folder until you press "Accept" (after having generated filters, mailboxes, and/or nicknames). Even then, any files that Email Magician actually "touches" (changes) are backed up in the "EMM Backups" folder inside your Email Magician Folder. Plus, you can revert afterwards.

Mailboxes are not included in these backups because Email Magician never really touches the contents of mailboxes. You can use Email Magician to move mailboxes to the trash (or to archive folders) or even rename them. But it's easy to retrieve a mailbox from the trash or an archive folder. There is simply not enough space to make backup copies of mailboxes. Filter files and address books are quite small by comparison so that's why they are backed up (also because Email Magician might have altered their contents at your request).

Like any new software, we recommend that you first back up your entire Eudora folder to before using Email Magician. We have tried to make it as safe as possible.

Unregistered Copies
Unregistered copies of Email Magician will only write one filter of each type (meaning a maximum of 15 filters), one mailbox, and one nickname per 24-hour period. Thus, unregistered versions will only write the first filter of each type of spam filters and the first of your Urgent filters.

It's the same with the Urgent filters. You can preview these by pressing the "eye" button that appears when you are constructing Urgent filters. But, only the first one of these filters will be written unless you are registered.

It's the same with Special filters. Another restriction is that unregistered copies of the software cannot write group address filters, including Spammer Addresses filters (there are 4 kinds of these). Spammer address collection features are available by way of the latch at the upper right of the Spam Filter Maker window. For more information, see the document entitled "Spammer Address Collection" in the same folder as this Read Me file...

Finally, only the options on the left-hand side of the Maintenance window are available to unregistered users, and the export to FileMaker™ feature will only export the first 50 messages in a mailbox until you are registered.

In case this seems like a lot of restrictions for unregistered users, please recall that Email Magician is a very extensive program with very many options that that remain available regardless of whether the program is registered or not.

Registration
This is how you get a registration code. Once you have paid Kagi for Email Magician, either online or via the "Register" application included with Email Magician, send YAV the "Challenge Phrase" you will find in the Registration dialog box (there are menu items and buttons all over the program to take you there). It will speed things up if you include your Challenge Phrase as a comment when you register (see the instructions in the Registration dialog box or in the document "Registering YAV Software").

Include your name and email address to which the registration code should be sent, and you will be receive a registration code usually within 24 hours. Once you enter the registration code, the program will be unlocked (for the computer upon which you registered it). You will be able to make as many filters as you like, whenever you want. And, you will be able to use all the Spam filters options and the Urgent filters options and the Special filters options.

Note: You can copy the Challenge phrase to the clipboard by clicking on it (as indicated in the registration dialog).

Time it takes to generate filters
Generating filters currently takes approximately 2 to 5 seconds per 100 messages in the box(es) you have chosen for consideration by Email Magician. This is what it takes on a reference G3-400MHz. If you have a faster computer, it will probably take less time.

Thus, if you have 10,000 (ten thousand) messages in your Inbox, you can figure on waiting for 200 to 500 seconds before Email Magician produces results (in other words, between 3 and 8 minutes). Much of this also depends upon what matching configurations you are using. Again, this assumes a G3-400MHz reference machine.

Remember, that the time requirements will get shorter and shorter as Email Magician gradually puts more and more of your email in order.

Memory requirements
Email Magician needs more memory to process larger mailboxes. It is currently set to 24,064 bytes (almost 24 MB) and this makes it possible to process at least 7,000 messages at a time, yielding over 10,000 candidates to match for filters. If you experience a crash, it is most likely due to running out of memory. You have two choices: You can increase the memory partition for Email Magician using "Get Info" in the Finder after having selected the Email Magician program. Alternatively, process fewer boxes at a time, or set the "1000 message per box limit" in the Preferences. Another reason you might crash is if there is not enough room on the disk where your Eudora Folder resides for Email Magician to make temporary files. Or, there might not be enough room on the disk where you have placed Email Magician for it to make your backup files.

Contact information
You can send general inquiries to:

YAV@kagi.com
-or-
EmailMagician@yav.com

We welcome your suggestions for future versions of Email Magician. We are already working on the next version. With all other YAV software, upgrades to registered users are free of charge. We intend to continue this practice with Email Magician.

Disclaimer
This software is distributed "as is." Like any tool, it can be either used or misused. Neither Christopher Yavelow or YAV Interactive Media will assume responsibility for any problems it might cause for you. While every possible effort has been to assure that this software is free of "bugs," it is always a good idea to back up your important data files before using any new software, at least until you are sure it is doing exactly what it is intended to do. You may be assured that the Email Magician's developer has been using the program continually without incident. There have been many beta-testers as well. However, due to the number of Macintosh models and operating systems currently available, it is impossible to test a product like this with every combination of computers and operating systems. If you have a problem with Email Magician and your particular Macintosh configuration, please report it to YAV at tech@yav.com, describing your computer, operating system, version of Eudora, nature of the problem, and any other information you feel could be pertinent. We will do everything to provide a solution.

Information about Email Magician 1.5

Email Magician 1.5 more than doubles the number of spam filters of previous versions. In this new version of YAV's popular utility for Eudora® Mac, spam filters test for approximately 1,000 spam characteristics that may be present in incoming mail, thus keeping your mailboxes uncluttered. In addition to these built-in spam filters, the program also offers Spammer Address Collection, an option that tracks spammers (up to about 1,250) who may be targetting you in particular, and trashes their messages before they even hit the other spam filters.

The main addition to version 1.5 is a major expansion to the number of spam filters. There is also a minor bug fix regarding Spammer Address filters that include a percent sign, a rare occurrence. Further, I have added an option to "Merge" imported "SpamDefs" files with the current configuration. This means that if you have made any additions to the Spam Filter Maker, you won't lose them by importing new Spam Definitions.

That's the good news. The bad news is that the changes were too extensive to build another tiny updater, so you'll have to re-download the entire package (don't worry though, it will "take over" your current preferences and registration status). This having been said, I've tried to add more hooks for coming upgrades in this version 1.5 so that I won't have to require a complete download again.

Also, if you don't mind replacing your current spam definitions, then all you need to do is download the new SpamDefs file which is quite small (about 20k). Keep in mind that in this case you won't have the merging option, and there will still be a glitch with Spammer Address filters that contain percent signs.

On the other hand, if you do want to merge the new spamDefs with your existing ones be sure to save a copy of your current spamDefs by clicking on the "Import" button with the option-key pressed (or by selecting "Save Spam Definitions File..." from the "Special" menu) BEFORE YOU RUN VERSION 1.5. Then import those using "Import Spam Definitions File..." or by pressing the Import button on the Spam Filter Maker. If you are running verison 1.5, you will be asked if you want to Merge the file you are importing with the existing configuration. Choose "Merge."

Email Magician “Read Me First” File

Information about Email Magician

Information about Email Magician 1.5