New and improved features coming with our latest website update

The most recent mailbox.org software update delivers improvements for the full-text search tool, better usability of inbox features, and easier editing of encrypted documents that are located on the Drive online storage. Furthermore, spamfilter settings can now be customized to meet special requirements.

Improvements and new features of the mailbox.org web interface

Intelligent full-text search

  • The new full-text search not only allows searching the inbox contents for keywords relating to recipient, sender, and subject line but can now also parse the actual content of e-mails, as well as MS Word and PDF attachments.

E-mail improvements

  • If presentation files are received as e-mail attachments, these can now be run directly from the e-mail window. Saving those files to the Drive or changing to the presentations menu first is no longer necessary for this.

Any e-mails left in editing mode before logout from the web interface will be automatically restored to editing mode after the next login. Upon logging in, the mailbox.org interface will display a pop-up window to offer restoring any open applications such as unsent e-mail drafts. Here, users can simply select a message to pick up editing where they left off last time.

  • When selecting different addresses, for instance to find shared meetings or appointments, the selected addresses can now be saved as a mailing list for convenience.
  • There is also an additional folder „Unread messages“. As the name suggests, all unread e-mails will be automatically filtered to be easily accessible here. This is a virtual folder – the actual e-mails are still physically located in the normal inbox folder.

Improvements in contacts and calendars

The calendar has been enhanced to improve general usability. The application now responds to key shortcuts. There is also better handling of recurring apointments so for instance, it is now possible to set an event to occur on the „Last Friday of every month“.

  • The address book has got an additional option for printing lists that may contain not just the phone numbers but also other details of your contacts, as required.

New features for the Drive online storage

Users of mailbox.org Guard can now open encrypted mailbox.org Office files more quickly with a doubleclick and without having to enter the decryption password repeatedly.

  • Photos can be displayed automatically as a slide show. To do this, users simply click on the semi-transparent arrow overlay that appears in the centre of the image.

 

Additional settings

  • The mailbox.org e-mail settings now contain an additional section for setting the default font style, -size, and -colour to be used in e-mails.

New feature: Customized mailbox.org spam filter settings

Due to popular demand, we have implemented a spam protection interface that allows our private users to adjust their own spam filter settings to suit individual needs. However, note that for the vast majority of users, modifying the spam filter configuration is not necessary – the default settings already provide optimal protection!

Therefore, we generally recommend using the default settings unless there are significant problems with false positives.

How does spam filtering work at mailbox.org?

Our spam protection system does not use a spam or quarantine folder to store suspicious messages in, as is often the case with other e-mail providers. Our servers are capable of checking e-mails for spam and viruses in realtime as they arrive on our systems. If any spam has been found, the corresponding e-mails will be instantly rejected and returned to sender with a delivery failure message.

This way of handling spam has certain advantages, firstly in terms of communication and, depending on the user’s country of residence, also legally. With regard to the first, the sender of an e-mail will instantly know whether their message has been delivered or rejected and does not need to rely on the recipient to frequently check spam or quarantine folders. On the legal side, in countries like Germany an e-mail sent by government authorities can have a status similar to an official letter and is considered „delivered“ upon arrival at the recipient’s inbox, even if it has been moved to a spam folder – which, in practice, does not necessarily mean the recipient is actually aware of that message. If such a problematic e-mail is rejected instead, then it is clear that the user has not received the message, which creates certainty for everyone involved.

Configuration options for the individual spam filter

The following options are available for configuring the spam protection on an individual level:

  • Greylisting
  • SMTP plausibility check
  • Realtime Blacklists (RBL)
  • Content spam filter
  • Executable attachments

Whenever changes to the spam filter settings are made, a coloured bar will indicate the approximate protection level achieved. While changes may be useful in certain circumstances, users should be aware that deviating from the default settings can lead to lower protection or an increase in false positives.

Users are responsible for any changes they make to their individual spam filter configuration. Please note that we are unable to provide support in cases where protection levels are set below 100%.

Please consult our dedicated knowledge base article on the subject to learn more about how the individual spam filter components work, and how they are properly configured.