Newb Imac User email questions

Greetings!

I have recently switched over from a PC to an Imac. I use Roadrunner for email and my old system was Outlook Express.

Today I deleted my old email identity on the PC and I lost EVERYTHING, saved email, addresses, etc. That in itself is not so bad as I can now start fresh WITHOUT having to share with my wife.

My question is why don't I seem to get as much junk mail with the Mac? Also, will the Mac email program automatically designate junk mail and trash it without me having to manually delete it?

Also, I am sure that I will have many more questions in the coming weeks concerning the operation of this new system. Any and all help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks for any help anyone can offer.

Hi, welcome and congrats on the switch.

As regards your wife, I strongly suggest (to all married couples!) that each person have their own separate account on any shared machine. It's incredibly easy to set up on the Mac, and you can set her as an admin-level (she can install updates/software) or just user-level (can't do those things), but either way she will have total control of her account and you will have total control of your account and neither of you will be able to see or mess with each other's stuff. This has saved many a relationship!

Second, the Mac email program WILL try to designate junk mail and can be set to automatically delete it if you really want, but I find that the "artificial intelligence" of the spam filter isn't quite that trustworthy (I sign up for new email lists and such and sometimes those get flagged as "junk" when they aren't, etc).

In Mail (the default Mac email program), should have the junk filter set to "training" mode for about a week. This will allow junk mail into your inbox, but colours it brown (heh) so you can show Mail what is and isn't junk. After that, you can set it to "Automatic" mode where suspected spam/junk mail is put in a Junk folder automatically. I like to have a peek in there every week or so JUST to make sure nothing came up as a "false positive," but generally speaking its very accurate, and you can set the junk folder to empty itself periodically.

Here's some links that I hope will help you!

Switch 101
Mac 101
iLife tutorials
MyFirstMac.com

Oh, and if you would like a reference book to keep handy, I'd suggest:
http://www.amazon.com/Switching-Mac-Missing-Manual-Leopard/dp/0596804253?tag=macforums0e4-20