Select View, Columns, and Scroll down to the tick box that says "Size". Tick the box and then click OK. Now when you look at your list of emails, you should see the size column to the right of the Received Column.
The Preview pane automatically opens each email as you click on it: This can be dangerous as many viruses can spread just by being read. To disable it:
Click View, Layout, and in the lower section un-tick the box that says "Show Preview Pane"
Look at the size of the email before opening it.
Any email larger than 10kb, is suspect.
If you have a suspect email, right click on it, and select "properties" (at the bottom)
then click on "details" at the top.
You can see here various information about the email, like:
Next click the "message source" button.
Scroll down at look for a large section of gobblegook that has no recognisable words in it. - Example section:
AwEBAAAAAAAAAAABESExECBAUGBwMEFxgTL/2gAMAwEAAhEDEQAAAPHWdvst+B6PV0p5fL73gryq
/RdmPDbepuPI5vfcazh0eo6x427rbl8ZR9A5Sedz+v6h46zsa18bn9/yU4Gb1V6+eu6fUzfGD2HJ
rkHV0M9OUvWsx05idSWcezqczXOqx5rBq7NseZ2dEWcLT1Nac3n+sSPN9yaq8rZ62izBy/f8SXzP
That will be an attachment.
At the top of the gobblegook there will be a few lines in bold that describe what the attachment is. For example:
------=_NextPart_000_0020_01C22DE5.69AEA890
Content-Type: image/jpeg;
name="Bell1.jpg"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: attachment;
filename="Bell1.jpg"
If the name is something .exe or .pif or .scr it is probably a virus (here it is Bell1.jpg - Probably safe)
If you scroll further up you will see if there has been any text message included in the email. If the text makes no sense, it is probably a virus.
At this point I personally just delete the email.
If you are concerned that it may be a genuine email, you can look up the "from" address in the first section (see above) and email who sent you the email asking them whether they know anything about the email!
Display the File Size of your emails