What tools exist to help manage SPAM / Junk Mail?

The options available to you depend on how you use your email account.

In general, the server side filtering scans the message for phrases, patterns, tricks or other "signatures" which are typical of Spammers. Depending on how many of these items occur in a message, a score is assigned. To prevent messages which are likely spam from being accidentally read (and triggering any embedded spyware or other traps) the original messages are "attached" to a new message containing a report detailing the reasons the message was detected as Spam.

When a POP3 account is used, the server can not automatically move the mail. POP3 allows the client to download the mail and organize it within the client, so the server can only tag the messages - filing the messages in folders is left to the client.

When used with Outlook, Spam tagging can be combined with Junk Mail processing in Outlook to filter out most of the garbage mail.