If AVG Control center displays an error message "E-mail scanner is not fully functional", please left-click on the E-mail scanner window (the red one), in the bottom part of the AVG Control Center window you will see a detailed description of why the E-mail scanner does not work properly.

Following reasons may occur:

Personal E-mail scanner is not configured

If you are using any of the e-mail programs that are supported by AVG Free Edition (MS Outlook, The BAT!), the Personal E-mail Scanner is installed needlessly because mail is scanned by AVG Free Edition directly by a special plugin developed for these e-mail programs. In that case you do not need the Personal E-mail Scanner, you should uninstall it. Uninstallation process is described here.

Plugin for The Bat! program is not installed

In this case you installed the AVG Free Edition plugin for this e-mail program, but you do not have the e-mail program installed. In that case you do not need the plugin for The Bat!, you should uninstall it. Uninstallation process is described here.

We have enabled filtering of password protected files attached to e-mails (available for mail scanning only). These types of archive files are often used to distribute viruses i.e. I-Worm/Bagle virus, etc. The content of these files cannot be scanned because AVG Free Edition cannot extract archive files protected by a password. You can set up AVG Free Edition e-mail scanner so that it will automatically delete these types of archive files from your mail.

Please follow these steps:

• Open AVG Control Center program
• Doubleclick the E-mail scanner window
• Press Configure button
• At the Scanning Properties frame please enable the Automatically move password protected archives to the Virus Vault checkbox
• Confirm the new setting by pressing the OK button

If you install a new e-mail client, supported by AVG Free Edition which is already installed on your PC, it is necessary to add required plug-in using the latest installation file of AVG Free Edition program. You can download it here.

Run downloaded file, select Add/Remove Components option and continue to the screen with available components. Select the component you want to install and finish the process.

You can use eicar.com test-virus for this purpose. You can download this file directly from the www.eicar.org website – the developer of this file. This file is NOT a real virus, it is developed for testing purposes only and every antivirus system should report a virus on this file. AVG Free Edition detects it as EICAR-Test virus

The AVG Email scanner provides an option of the automatic attachment filtering based on extension type (such as dangerous .exe, .scr, .bat, .reg, .etc). This feature is very important for a general security of the system - for example when AVG Free Edition is not up to date.

Instructions :

Please, run AVG Control Center , choose the Email Scanner component  and press the Properties button. Select the correct plugin (mentioned for the email program you use) and press the Configure button. The above mentioned settings can be specified in the column Remove files with these extensions (extensions must be in comma separated list, e.g. exe,bat,scr).

Make sure that AVG Plug-in for Outlook is not denied by MS Office program.

• run MS Outlook
• go to the Help menu->About MS Outlook-> Disabled Items
• select AVG Free Edition item and use Enable option
• if there is no AVG Free Edition for Windows item in Disabled Items, please follow steps in FAQ 682

Launch The BAT!. Go to the Options->Preferences->Anti-Virus. Now mark the plug-in and press DELETE button.

This Plug-in doesn't certify the messages because of the antiviral Interface properties of The BAT!. The Plug-in is called only to check e-mail attachments.

The above mentioned problem can arise if the message is created in the MS Word  (or when the Outlook is set to use MS Word as the e-mail editor). Problem is caused by the MS Word and its way of saving hypertext links into the html file.

This problem can be solved only by setting Outlook to use a plain text instead of html, or by disabling of the AVG Free Edition certification - messages are still scanned for virus infection of course. You can also disable the using of MS Word as e-mail editor.

Please perform the following procedure:

• close your Outlook program
• register avgxch32.dll by following command from the Start menu -> Run: regsvr32.exe "c:\Program Files\Grisoft\AVG Free\avgxch32.dll"
• run Outlook again and check the existence of AVG Free for Windows items in the Tools menu

If the items are still missing, do the following:

• close Outlook program
• unregister library by following command regsvr32.exe /u "c:\Program Files\Grisoft\AVG Free\avgxch32.dll" (Start menu -> Run)
• locate and remove EXTEND.DAT file from your hard drive
• register avgxch32.dll library again (as mentioned above)
• run Outlook program

In some unique cases you have to create servers in the Personal e-mail scanner manually. The typical case is when you are using secure communication (SSL). In this case you have to create servers in the Personal e-mail scanner this way:

(AVG Control Center->E-mail scanner->Properties->Personal e-mail scanner->Properties->Servers tab)

• click on Add->Server type->POP3 - protocol for receiving e-mail messages->Connection->choose Fixed host on the right side of the screen and type here name of your original POP3 server->choose port number (5200 recommended)->enable the secure communication in the Connection dialogue and click on OK
• click on Add->Server type->SMTP - protocol for sending e-mail messages->Connection->choose Fixed host on the right side of the screen and type here name of your original SMTP server->choose port number (5100 recommended)->enable the secure communication in the Connection dialogue and click on OK
• Then you have to to set up the account in your e-mail client this way:
• server for incomming e-mails: 127.0.0.1, port number as configured in the Personal e-mail scanner
• server for outgoing e-mails: 127.0.0.1, port number as configured in the Personal e-mail scanner
• disable secure communication in your client

The Personal e-mail scanner is a plug-in which scans incoming/outgoing e-mails automatically. You can use it with E-mail clients that do not have their own plug-in in AVG. So you can use it for example with Outlook Express, Eudora, Mozilla, Incredimail etc. If you have chosen the Personal e-mail scanner to install during the AVG Free Edition installation, there are automatic servers created for e-mail control - one for checking incoming e-mails and the second one for checking outgoing e-mails. Using these two servers, e-mails are automatically checked on ports 110 and 25 (standard ports for sending/receiving e-mails).

Personal e-mail scanner works as an interface between e-mail client and e-mail servers on the Internet.

Incoming mail:

E-mail client sends request to Personal e-mail scanner to get mail, it receives message from the server and tests it for viruses, removes infected attachments and adds certification. Then the message is passed to the e-mail client. The scanning of incoming emails is enabled by default.

Outgoing mail:

Message is sent from e-mail client to Personal e-mail scanner; it tests the message and its attachments for viruses and then sends the message to the SMTP server. The scanning of outgoing emails is disabled by default.

This issue is not caused by the AVG E-mail Scanner at all but by Earthlink.

Sending e-mails to SMTP server is not supported because the Earthlink e-mail client is using command AUTH CRAM-MD5 which is not supported at all. This command is wrong (only the Earthlink server understands this command) and therefore scanning of outgoing e-mails cannot be used.

You can disable scanning of outgoing e-mails this way:

• open AVG Control Center
• double click on E-mail Scanner
• choose Personal E-mail Scanner plug-in
• click on Properties button
• select Servers tab
• click on SMTP: Host: Automatic and click on Modify button
• here uncheck the Activate the server and use... option at the bottom of the window

Then click on all OK buttons to confirm changes. Outgoing e-mails will no longer be scanned.

We have tested the latest version of the MailWasher program. There is no problem with the AVG E-mail scanner. Any problems would be with incorrect MailWasher settings. Please open the MailWasher program -> Tools -> Accounts -> select the account -> Properties -> switch to Bouncing and outgoing mail -> SMTP server address -> Advanced account options -> Outgoing SMTP server -> enable My SMTP server requires authentication

If any problem appears with sending/receiving e-mails, the likely reason is that the AVG Personal E-mail Scanner is conflicting with another program that checks e-mails automatically (for example Symantec). We recommend that you do not run two such programs concurrently, or at least disable the e-mail scanning function in one of these programs.

If you use more then one e-mail client, run the installation and choose the Custom installation option in the Select installation type dialog. Then follow the instructions in the installation wizard and select the advanced configuration option in the E-mail scanning dialog. You will be able to choose the e-mail scanner plugins you would like to install.

We recommend installing only the e-mail scanner plugins which are designated for the e-mail clients that you use. For all other e-mail clients, please install the Personal e-mail scanner.

We recommend using AVG Personal Email Scanner instead of Eudora plugin with Eudora email client. Eudora and it's interface for anti-virus protection is not fully supported by developers at this time. It is necessary to use AVG Personal Email Scanner if you want to use anti-virus protection in Eudora.