POPFile

POPFile is an automatic mail classification tool. Once properly set up and trained, it will scan all email as it arrives and classify it based on your training. You can give it a simple job, like separating out junk e-mail, or a complicated one-like filing mail into a dozen folders. Think of it as a personal assistant for your inbox.

POPFile classifies email into categories you define. It can sort into spam and not spam or into any number of categories you like (e.g. work, personal, important project, hobby, etc.). The classification is done using a naïve Bayes algorithm. In other words, POPFile uses statistics to track which words are likely to appear in which messages. This means that POPFile will adapt to the kind of mail you receive and needs to be trained. Out of the box, it doesn’t know anything about spam or how messages from your mother differ from those your friends send you. However, if you train it, it will soon learn how to tell these different kinds of messages apart. POPFile was created by John Graham-Cumming and is maintained as open source by a team of developers and users that file bug reports, post patches, and suggest enhancements.

The program uses Bayesian classification, which is highly effective an learns from your instructions. Overall, POPfile provides great flexibility and accurate filtering, however it does require at least some basic understanding of email and POP accounts in order to use it effectively.

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