Our Sender Approval System is the "brain" behind our spam-blocking mechanism. It does not function in the same way as spam filters, which, quite frankly, just don't work all that well. (But you probably already know that or you wouldn't be reading this.)

Here's how it works: If someone sends you an email and they are not on your "Approved Sender" list, they are sent a simple Approval Request that must be answered (within the time period you specify) prior to delivering their original email to your Inbox. In the meantime, the email is held in your Pending folder. This process only needs to be done once for each "real" sender who is not already on your Approved Sender List, and literally takes only a few seconds to complete. Once someone has been Approved, their original email will be moved from your Pending folder to your Inbox, and any subsequent emails they send will be delivered straight through. In addition, any address that you send an email to or any address that is in your address book is automatically added to your Approved sender list so they do not need to go through the Approval process. Please visit the image below for a visual representation.

So, how is this able to stop spam? Simple. Our ApproveMail system foils spammers because it requires human interaction to pass the Approval process. While this is a very easy task for real people, the automated mailing software and computers used by spammers simply cannot deal with it.