Q, the trouble with keeping them on paper is that some spam blocking software will then let in virtually no email if you don't list them so your filter can look at them. I use Earthlink, and finally resorted to their ratcheted-high-no-non-listed-email spam filter because I was so sick of the slimy stuff coming through. I do use the BCC, and when friends or family prove unreliable about doing the same, I change the email they use to reach me over to one that is my "public" address (and since it isn't listed in any of the browsers I use, the information isn't left behind on any logs--another way our email addresses are disseminated). The Earthlink mail works by posting the addresses I am willing to receive mail from in the web-version of Earthlink's email program. Anything that isn't listed in there is chucked into the "suspect spam" and "known spam" files. If someone sends a post and it goes there, they receive a bounced message from Earthlink telling them how to request their name be added (it goes to me and I say "yes" or "no.")
A few feelings have been hurt, usually those people who rarely write and I didn't have their address handy when I set up the list. When the request comes through, I usually add them. Sometimes people have several email addresses, like I do, and I don't have each one on my list. The are added as they turn up.
The result? Every couple of days I open the web folder of suspect email, scan down the list of names (trying to avert my eyes from the subject lines, they're mostly just too nauseating). 99 times out of 100 there is nothing in there that was caught by accident, and I click on a "delete all spam" and there it goes. Same with the known spam folder. And if I do nothing to them, the stuff goes away after a couple of weeks.
Just something to think about. I don't use Outlook at home (I am left with no choice at work) and I have none of the preview panes on in any email program. I'm hunkered down behind my software trying to keep out the trash.