This topic

Emails sent (wrongly) to SPAM

Jules68 — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 11:34:39 GMT

I get (or got) emails from a (UK based) supplier regularly, but over the last 3-4 weeks these have been going to SPAM. I mark them as 'not spam' and 'safe sender' and they then come back into my in-box, but the next ones received are sent to SPAM again. I have checked on 'my own' records in the system, and this sender is shown for me as being a safe sender and is not showing as blocked in my information, but I cannot get it registered back to be sent to my in-box. It just keeps on going into SPAM. In general using the unblocking (or indeed the blocking) commands works -it's just this one sender who I cannot unblock. I have blocked some domains in their entirety, but this isn't one of them. Any advice?

Re: Emails sent (wrongly) to SPAM

gg30340 — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 12:55:26 GMT

Set up a "Rule" that any emails from the email address get sent to your Inbox.

Re: Emails sent (wrongly) to SPAM

Jules68 — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 13:23:38 GMT

Thanks, I'll try that out.

Re: Emails sent (wrongly) to SPAM

Jules68 — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 11:10:49 GMT

Sadly this didn't work - I wrote the rule (which joined 2 others I had already created - some years ago, I'd quite forgotten, but which do still work) - but the message this morning from my source, with exactly the same name and e-mail as in the rule) has been - again - pushed to SPAM. Out of interest this has only happened since I've been on the new version of the BT Mail app - I was a trialist. And it didn't start immediately, I don't think. But now, for this one correspondent, neither the simple method (marking non-spam and safe sender) nor writing a specific rule will 'unblock' this UK firm from SPAM. Very strange.

Re: Emails sent (wrongly) to SPAM

gg30340 — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 11:50:58 GMT

I don't see how the BTMail app would be the culprit as it should basically be synchronising/replicating what is happening in webmail and not the other way around.

A simple way of checking for sure would be to uninstall the BTMail app and try using a different email app such as Bluemail to see if the problem persists.

If it does then it will point to the problem being with webmail or rather BT's spam filters that have determined that the email from the sender may be spam and as such place it into your spam folder to let you decide.

Re: Emails sent (wrongly) to SPAM

Jules68 — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 12:09:10 GMT

Sorry, I didn't mean the mobile mail app but BT mail on the Internet, accessed via BT Mail. BT's own mail presence. When it's stopped there in Spam it can't be accessed by Mail apps or other interfaces at all. This is via the BT site. So the problem does lie with BT Mail. Once I've got it back into the BT inbox from Spam then my other interfaces (Blue Mail for mobile, and Thunderbird on my desktop) have no problems with the source. I do know where my problem lies.

Re: Emails sent (wrongly) to SPAM

licquorice — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 12:24:56 GMT

Not quite sure what you mean by that. If your mail apps are configured as IMAP, you will see exactly the same folders as webmail.

Re: Emails sent (wrongly) to SPAM

gg30340 — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 12:25:39 GMT

As an aside for information, if you have your email apps that you do use set up as IMAP accounts they should/can show the spam folder and its contents.

Have you tried adding the domain of the sender ie *@example.com to your safe sender list?

Re: Emails sent (wrongly) to SPAM

Jules68 — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 12:33:41 GMT

Yes, I've checked. It shows, in BT Mail, as a safe sender. And I've now written a rule to send any mail from that sender to the BT inbox. Neither of those work, which is why I'm on the forum. Everything on BT mail tells me that these emails should not be going to SPAM, which is why the fact that they always do is so annoying. I'm not a novice with BT Mail. I've also checked that I have not blocked the domain. I haven't. Your advice about writing a specific rule should have worked, but didn't.

Re: Emails sent (wrongly) to SPAM

Andy_N — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 14:21:55 GMT

@Jules68wrote:
Yes, I've checked. It shows, in BT Mail, as a safe sender. And I've now written a rule to send any mail from that sender to the BT inbox. Neither of those work, which is why I'm on the forum. Everything on BT mail tells me that these emails should not be going to SPAM, which is why the fact that they always do is so annoying. I'm not a novice with BT Mail. I've also checked that I have not blocked the domain. I haven't. Your advice about writing a specific rule should have worked, but didn't.

Make sure your rules don't conflict. Also check that the rules continue to check after the first rule has "finished", something like untick "Stop more rule checks" or words to that affect.

Re: Emails sent (wrongly) to SPAM

Jules68 — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 14:34:28 GMT

Good points, but I did make sure to uncheck stop all rule checks. And my other two rules don't conflict, they all are about stopping Spam blocks. It's just weird that just one sender, and that a UK sender off a UK domain, remains blocked whatever I do. I've checked through all blocked and allowed sites and the allowed sender in question shows as allowed, and isn't also in blocked. It's a supplier that I have been using, if intermittently, for over a decade and more. I can cope with this, but it's just annoying I have to.

Re: Emails sent (wrongly) to SPAM

licquorice — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 15:20:29 GMT

Who knows the quirks of the BT spam filtering. I have long ago stopped trying to understand it.

I receive regular advertising emails from a travel company and have done for a number of years, occasionally BT email will throw a hissy fit and start sending them to Spam and just as suddenly revert to sending them to my Inbox again.

Re: Emails sent (wrongly) to SPAM

Jules68 — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 15:51:47 GMT

Yes

I too get sudden unexpected visitors to my SPAM box, previously welcome guests in my inbox, but doing the 'not spam, safe sender' thing is enough to restore them for the future (for a time at least). It's the persistent refusal in this instance to accept any instruction (no, they are accepted, they're just then ignored!) which annoys me.

Re: Emails sent (wrongly) to SPAM

licquorice — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 16:05:53 GMT

I must admit I never bother to tag them as not Spam or safe sender and just accept that they will eventually return to the Inbox.

Its no big deal, they still appear in Outlook on my desktop and Blue Mail on my mobile, just in the wrong folder.

Re: Emails sent (wrongly) to SPAM

Jules68 — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 10:00:08 GMT

I think I have now resolved this issue - it was a conflict between BT Mail and another mail app. I think what was happening is that BT Mail was letting the post through initially, but it was being marked suspected spam by another mail app and in posting it to its own SPAM box it mirrored into BT Mail's. However, if I moved it out of BT Mail's spam box my other ap was then allowing it, so it looked as if all the blocking was happening only in BT Mail. Now that I have told the other app that the email source is 'ok' - it is not being blocked there, and thus no mirroring back into BT Mail's SPAM. And emails are now flowing through. I think this sort of thing was first suggested by gg30340 - but until very recently I was seeing nothing to suggest a second blocking source (my main email app) and it was accepting emails when I moved them back out of BT Mail Spam, so I assumed that that app didn't have a problem with them. Just by chance I did capture that. The app which I think was at fault normally just flags suspect mail but leaves it flagged in my in-box (unless I've confirmed previously that it's SPAM). Because it wasn't doing this I didn't think it was the primary cause. And, to be fair, BT Mail is normally pretty good as a primary SPAM filter, so not much anyway gets through to the email app I normally use on my desktop.

Re: Emails sent (wrongly) to SPAM

ShaunOM — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 14:05:51 GMT

The spam filter is over zealous at best, but worse, the safe sender list is being ignored! I keep adding a safe sender e-mail address to the list (with More and "Mark as not spam and safe sender") which should side-step the anti-spam filter altogether but for perfectly legitimate e-mails with no content that should be triggering the spam filter, they still go to spam.

I've also tried creating a rule that anything from a specific address should be moved to the Inbox but it's hard to know if it's being executed since it's unclear if the rule runs after the spam filtering or before. In any event, legitimate e-mails from that sender are still sent to spam.

It seems to me that we should be able to 'reset' the spam filter as mine contains hundreds, almost all of which are
not, strictly speaking, spam - they are mostly annoying marketing e-mails where I'm evidently on many mailing lists and I need to use their 'unsubscribe' option for, obviously, those that are from legitimate companies.

Does anyone know how to get BT to do a reset on the spam filter for a given user's mailbox?

Re: Emails sent (wrongly) to SPAM

Grahm — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 08:01:37 GMT

I have the same problem: far too much genuine email is being routed by BT's over-zealous spam filter into the spam folder. Yes I could keep going back into webmail and marking these all up as Safe Senders but I already have well over 20 domains in there. Does BT allow any control over the level of spam filtering which is being applied (e.g. low, medium, high) or are we just stuck with whatever algorithm has chosen to apply?

Re: Emails sent (wrongly) to SPAM

licquorice — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 08:09:07 GMT

There is no user control, you are stuck with BT's decision on spam.

Re: Emails sent (wrongly) to SPAM

Grahm — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 08:37:48 GMT

Thanks - I thought that would be the case 😞