The purpose of the Status Tab is to provide feedback about what Top Dog is currently doing.

Mode
Top Dog operates in one of three modes: "Power User" "Advanced" or "Lite".

• The purpose of the Lite mode is to provide a simplified interface for those users who have more basic needs and do not want to be bothered by all the options of the more Litemodes.
  
  
• Advanced gives more options for the user who wants a little more flexibility.
  
  
• Litemode is designed for optimum power and flexibility to meet the needs of the more demanding user.

If you want something easy, choose Lite mode.
Most users find Lite mode is more than adequate for their needs.

The Doghouse
Top Dog's Doghouse is a temporary place where bad email are sent.
The Doghouse gives you the chance to review suspicious messages before they are deleted.

The Doghouse box shows you the number of messages in Doghouse and provides you with a button to access Doghouse.
If you press the "View Doghouse" button, a window will pop up where you can review the messages in Doghouse.

From this window you can also preview messages by double clicking on them. This will show you the plain text of the email and will not leak any private information or run any scripts.
You can categorize email by selecting them and either right clicking and choosing a category from the menu or using the combobox at the bottom of the window.
After categorizing them you can choose to delete or release the email.
If you choose to release a message it will be downloaded to your email program the next time it checks for mail.

To avoid messages building up over time, Top Dog will automatically delete email left in Doghouse for one week.

When Doghouse contains email the Top Dog's icon in the system tray will change and it's hint indicates the number of items in Doghouse.
(The system tray is the area of the task bar where system extensions are shown. Usually found on the right hand side of your task bar.)

Incoming Messages
This box shows you if there are any messages waiting for you to read and the progress Top Dog is making in retrieving and processing new messages.
Note: If there are messages available to be read but your email reader is not picking them up it is because Top Dog only deletes these messages when they have been deleted from your server.
In other words if you have the "leave mail on server" option on your email program turned on then the messages sitting on your server will also appear here.

If you want Top Dog to check your server for new messages immediately, you can press the "Check for mail now" button.
If you right click on this button you can choose to download from a specific account.
Otherwise, mail will be downloaded every time your email reader requests mail.


Outgoing Messages
The outgoing messages box shows you Top Dog's progress in sending messages, as well as allowing you to change the way a particular message is sent.

"Messages Being Processed" indicates the number of messages that are being processed.
The processing of outgoing messages simply consists of removing any information that Top Dog may have added to the message when it was originally received and updating your whitelists.