This topic

How to stop emails going to spam folder?

wrighar — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 17:49:07 GMT

I use an external mail package, and have done sing 1993, but recently main is being filtered t the BT mail spam folder, and thus not being downloaded by my mail app.

I've missed several important emails because of this, and only noticed why last night as I never login to the webmail.

I have no rules setup in the webmail and don't understand why BT is moving email to spam.

I manually moved the emails back to inbox, and they happily downloaded...

Anyone know how I turn off the spam folder?

Re: How to stop emails going to spam folder?

gg30340 — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 19:37:23 GMT

You can not turn off the BT spam folder.

If you find that genuine emails are being put into spam you should try adding the senders email address into your "Safe Senders" list.

Email that ends up in your spam folder has triggered the spam filters and the filters have not been able to decide if it is spam or a genuine email and as such it places it into your spam folder to allow you to decide.

If it was certain it was spam it would not have reached your account let alone the spam folder.

If you set up your email client as an IMAP account you should be able to access your spam folder from there.

Re: How to stop emails going to spam folder?

wrighar — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 13:27:25 GMT

I may have to go down the IMAP route.... 😞 although would rather now.

I've set a load of emails to safe sender, but still they end up in SPAM, thigs that never would, like bank statements, credit card statements, order receipts, educational emails/reports.

It just seems like the BT 'spamish' filter has become over zealous and now a major annoyance forcing me to log onto webmail 1-2 times a day to individually set emails to safe sender, and then move everything to the inbox.

BT, I need to be able to turn this OFF!

Re: How to stop emails going to spam folder?

gg30340 — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 13:33:28 GMT

You will never be able to turn off the spam filters.

As previously stated, BT along with all the email providers filter out spam emails prior to getting to your account and only allow ones that the filters can not decide if spam or not get put in your spam folder. If you were able to turn it off you would be inundated with hundreds if not thousands of spam emails per day.

Re: How to stop emails going to spam folder?

azoic — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 10:34:19 GMT

This has happened to me recently. A lot of emails have started being directed to spam. I can't see any logic to it.

The answer to your question should be to set up a rule that copies all emails to the inbox. You can then sort them out in your client.

I say should be because this is the solution I have used for years but recently it has stopped working. If I set up a rule to copy emails to the inbox it doesn't work.

These issues started a couple of weeks ago.

Maybe you could try it and see if you have better luck.

Re: How to stop emails going to spam folder?

ShaunOM — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 13:52:42 GMT

I agree that 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.

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?

Re: How to stop emails going to spam folder?

PeteB3 — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 17:40:58 GMT

Hi azoic
Same thing has happened to me and it also started about a couple of weeks ago.

Re: How to stop emails going to spam folder?

azoic — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 18:36:58 GMT

I still haven't got to the bottom of it.

You can set up an email rule that moves emails to the inbox - this should in effect bypass the spam folder.

The could be something like: 'If From contains '@', move message to inbox'. This should pickup all emails and put them in the inbox. I have had this rule setup and working for several years but recently, although I haven't changed it, it has stopped working.

I have tried the online help and rang the help line but nobody has got back to me.

Re: How to stop emails going to spam folder?

str8chat — Sun, 10 Nov 2024 23:44:11 GMT

The big problem with IMAP that I have is that I use several desktop and laptop PCs, and I use use client side rules in POP3 to push the emails in different directions on the different PCs. In particular, I don't want work related emails splitting into multiple mailboxes on a laptop I use purely for social activity.

Before the spam mess-up was introduced, everything was working perfectly with POP3 and the rules I had set up. I cannot get IMAP filtering to work correctly across my different client systems.

It's email addressed to me. Why should BT try and play God and decide what I should be able to download and filter as I want? So now I am forced to log in with a browser and sort out the mess that BT's email is creating

It gets very confusing when several emails from one sender get through, but a few from the same sender are identified as spam by some arbitrary piece of **bleep** BT code. Why is there no switch in the system so I can say no spam or junk filtering and simply let me see everything that is sent to me? My own client side spam filters can either delete from the server without downloading or download what I class as spam for a specific PC and drop it straight in the deleted folder. Then I can do a click scan of the subjects and senders before hitting the empty folder button.

Re: How to stop emails going to spam folder?

str8chat — Fri, 16 May 2025 10:14:46 GMT

I recently got an update from BT's [no-]help team.

Apparently there are TWO levels of spam filter:

A service wide filter that stops certain incoming emails even getting near my account.
An account level filter where I can define domains or addresses as spam or not spam sources. Randomly, new addresses or domains may default either to spam or not spam. I have to log into webmail every 2 or 3 weeks and check if the service has randomly set a new source as spam. Then I can override the random setting by explicitly defining an address or domain as safe.

On my regular small laptop I use POP3 rather than IMAP as I don't want all the mail on the web server on the laptop. Also, if there is an email I want to save on my desktop PC next time I am home, I cannot delete it from the laptop if it uses IMAP until I have it on the desktop. It seems that IMAP deletes it from the server so the desktop won't be able to download it. POP3 allows me to delete from the laptop without affecting the web server.

Re: How to stop emails going to spam folder?

licquorice — Fri, 16 May 2025 10:31:42 GMT

With IMAP, mail is held on the server until deleted on any device or webmail whence it is deleted on all devices.

With POP3 mail is downloaded to the client and not held on the server unless the client has ticked the box for the mail to remain on the server.

As regards Spam, there are 2 levels but not as you describe.

What BT regards as definite spam is filtered at the server and is never seen by the customer. What BT regards as indertimate spam is sent to your spam folder.

Additionally, it is possible to add addresses as suspected spam or alternatively as safe senders within webmail

Re: How to stop emails going to spam folder?

azoic — Sat, 17 May 2025 10:49:38 GMT

Hello,

I want all emails to be downloaded to my client. It's a nuisance to have to keep logging onto webmail just to flag messages as safe.

The point is this: it is possible to create rules to copy emails from one folder to another. e.g. from the spam folder to the inbox. This has worked for many years but now it doesn't.

Re: How to stop emails going to spam folder?

licquorice — Sat, 17 May 2025 10:54:30 GMT

If your client is configured as IMAP instead of POP3, the spam folder can be included on your client

Re: How to stop emails going to spam folder?

gg30340 — Sat, 17 May 2025 11:28:33 GMT

@azoic wrote:

Hello,

The point is this: it is possible to create rules to copy emails from one folder to another. e.g. from the spam folder to the inbox. This has worked for many years but now it doesn't.

The whole idea of the spam folder is so that the spam emails do not end up in your Inbox.

If they are genuine emails getting marked as spam in error you should add the senders email address to your Safe Senders list.

If you wanted to set up a "Rule" to have your spam send to the Inbox you would need to know some identifier such as either the spammers email address or domain and or something contained in the email title or something contained within the text and even then it would not catch all the spammers emails if indeed it caught any.

You would be far better to do as suggested and set up your email client as an IMAP account and this would allow you to check the actual spam folder from the email client.

Re: How to stop emails going to spam folder?

azoic — Sat, 17 May 2025 19:44:03 GMT

I am afraid you are missing the point. I don't want IMAP and I don't want to logon to webmail. Lots of emails that go to the spam folder are not spam. There is a facility to copy from the spam folder to the inbox by setting rules but it does not work. It used work to but now does not. It's trivial to setup rules to capture all emails in a folder (e.g. test for @) and you can copy from one folder to another. But copying from the spam folder to the inbox does not work. Its a bug.

Re: How to stop emails going to spam folder?

str8chat — Sun, 18 May 2025 11:19:13 GMT

@licquoriceI keep many emails on my desktop PC, but on my laptop PCs, I delete those I don't want filling their storage space. I may not use the desktop for several days, but use at least one laptop daily.

If I delete in IMAP, they are lost from the desktop machine unless I have already secured them. Hence my use of POP3 rather than IMAP.

Re: How to stop emails going to spam folder?

licquorice — Sun, 18 May 2025 12:03:24 GMT

Fair enough

Re: How to stop emails going to spam folder?

BarrieWalker — Fri, 23 May 2025 20:20:10 GMT

This drives me absolutely nuts. The vast majority of what ends up in my Spam folder isn't spam but genuine, often really important, messages. Maybe I'm just lucky that I don't get much spam. I do get some but I'm seeing them anyway as I'm having to check the Spam folder every time I look at email (several times a day usually) so as not to miss crucial stuff. It has become effectively just the Inbox2 folder. The net upshot is that it's just a pain having to check two folders rather than one. Please, BT, let users decide if the Spam folder is working for them or not. It certainly isn't for me!

Re: How can I turn OFF spam filters

BarrieWalker — Thu, 29 May 2025 08:31:09 GMT

I am not against BT using a spam filter. Weeding out genuine spam and not having to see it at all is wonderful!

The problem I have is that the vast majority of what ends up in my Spam folder is NOT spam but genuine, often important, messasges. The effect of this is that I don't actually have an Inbox and a Spam folder but rather TWO Inboxes where one has been named Spam - a better name for it would be Inbox2 as I have to constantly check both.

I would prefer something like a header to be added to suspect emails that my client can detect and flag but all in the single Inbox. When the vast majority of those flagged are genuine spam then I can turn on moving those to the Spam folder again.

I realise BT think they know best and aren't going to listen to be but it's cathartic to say it anyway!

Re: How can I turn OFF spam filters

licquorice — Thu, 29 May 2025 10:29:21 GMT

Mark the senders as 'Safe Senders', as pointed out several times through the thread.