SpamFoo Help Center

Documentation for installing, configuring, and managing SpamFoo on your mail server.

What is SpamFoo?

SpamFoo sorts and filters email on your mail server. It looks at many parts of each message (headers, sender reputation, authentication results, content patterns, etc.), as well an analysis of the meaning and intent of the message, and then classifies them as spam, primary, transactions, updates, or promotions.

The SpamFoo Client (service name: spamfoo-client) runs directly on your mail server. It uses a mix of rules and small machine learning models to classify email right on your server, without sending email content anywhere else to get a result.

Key Features

Antispam and Email Classification

SpamFoo first classifies emails as spam or legitimate mail. After that, legitimate mail is sorted into classes: Primary, Transactions, Updates, and Promotions. It uses a combination of rules and small machine learning models that run on your CPU. No GPU or cloud processing is needed.

  • Primary - Important messages that should be seen first. For example, direct messages from real people, 2FA codes, critical notifications, etc.
  • Transactions - Emails of a transactional or financial type. For example, receipts, subscription renewals, etc.
  • Updates - Updates from various sources that may be useful to know, but are rarely time-sensitive. Examples include social media, forums, kickstarter, etc.
  • Promotions - Emails that are not spam, but are still trying to offer a deal or sell something. For example, a new product offering from a legitimate company, or a 40% off sale from a legitimate source.

Feedback and Training

When users correct a classification (for example, moving a message from spam to inbox), SpamFoo updates its local models right away. These corrections are also shared in anonymized form to help improve SpamFoo's models for all users. See Feedback & Training for details.

Protected Identities

Protected Identities guard the people attackers most often impersonate, such as executives, payroll, or IT support. For each identity you list a display name and the domains that person legitimately sends from, and SpamFoo flags any message that claims to be from them but arrives from an unapproved or lookalike domain. This helps stop business email compromise and CEO-fraud attacks before they reach the inbox. See Phishing Protection for details.

Privacy and Data Handling

During classification, email content stays on your server. If a user submits a correction, only mathematical non-reversible embeddings and email attributes are reported. If the user opts-in to additional training, a sanitized version of the email body content may be included when a user explicitly submits a correction.

How It Works

  1. An email arrives at your mail server and is passed to the SpamFoo Client.
  2. The SpamFoo Client checks the email through several steps, including:
    • Checks the cache, allowlists, and blocklists
    • Looks for known threats like phishing
    • Applies your custom system, domain, and user rules
    • Applies corrections learned from past feedback
    • Runs on-device AI models for deeper analysis
  3. SpamFoo returns a result. Many emails are classified without any network calls at all.
  4. When users correct a mistake (for example, marking something as "not spam"), SpamFoo learns from it immediately.

Deployment Options

  • SmarterMail: SmarterMail has tight, automatic integration with SpamFoo.
  • Service/Daemon: Run in the background as a daemon process and responds through http requests.

For more information about deployment options and specific setup scenarios, see Mail Server Integration.

Who This Documentation Is For

Server Administrators

If you run a mail server for one organization, start here. You can get a license at www.spamfoo.com (once the closed beta ends) or download an already-integrated mail server.

Managed Service Providers and Software Developers

If you manage mail servers for multiple customers, or you sell mail server software, SpamFoo offers partnership opportunities for you. For more information, refer to SpamFoo's Partners Page.

Supported Platforms

  • Windows: Windows Server 2016 R2, 2019, 2022, 2025+, and Windows 10/11+
  • Ubuntu-Based: Ubuntu 22.04+, Debian 11+
  • Red Hat-Based: RHEL 8+, Fedora 40+, CentOS Stream 9+, AlmaLinux 8.10+, Rocky Linux 8.10+

See System Requirements for full hardware and software details.

Supported Mail Servers

  • SmarterMail - Built-in integration with feedback loop support

Getting Help

Next Steps

  1. Check the System Requirements to make sure your server is compatible
  2. Follow the Installation Guide for your platform
  3. Connect SpamFoo to your mail server
  4. Confirm everything is working from the admin dashboard