MailGuard is different from other spam filters because it does not download emails to your computer before checking if they are spam. This saves time, especially if you use a dial up internet collection.

You can check several email accounts from within the program and use three black lists to check for known spam. They are: SpamCop, SORBS (Spam and Open Relay Blocking System) and SPEWS (Spam Prevention Early Warning System)

MailGuard can also 'bounce' spam if you wish. This sends an error back to the sender so that they think that your email address does not exist.

You can also use MailGuard to delete emails that are so big they would take a long time to download, which is very useful if someone inadvertantly sends you a huge file.