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Old 6 Sep 2019, 04:24 AM   #4
n5bb
Intergalactic Postmaster
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Irving, Texas
Posts: 8,929
Arrow In most cases, don’t automatically respond or delete messages

When viewing any of those messages in the Fastmail app or website, use the vertical ellipsis (three vertical dot) Action tool to Add Rule from Message. You can then set up your rule based on one of the actual messages. If it’s sent from more than one From address, do this on messages sent from each From sender address. Just be sure not to block all messages sent from POBox!

My suggestion is to initially set up a special folder (with an Auto-purge setting of 7 days) and build your rules to move these messages automatically to that folder (rather then immediately delete them). Look at that folder at least once a week and be sure that no desirable messages are being accidentally placed in the folder. This is much safer than just assuming that your rule is perfect, and since the messages are auto-purging in a week you won’t use up your account quota even if you get blasted by junk. If you still get junk after a few weeks and everything in that folder is of no use to you, then you can change the rule to permanently delete. You can even leave that folder active and change it so that all arriving messages from that sender are marked as spam, which might eventually prevent them from bothering others.

As pointed out by others, sending any type of auto-reply is counterproductive. The person bothering you could redirect those to someone else and it would look like you were spamming them! It’s always a bad idea to send any reply email automatically unless you are temporarily away (vacation message) or are moving to a new email address and want to notify your friends. Even in those cases you can get into trouble with automatically generated responses.

Bill
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