I'm having one heck of a time with junk mail

[hempomatic]

I never open any email that is unsolicited. A couple of weeks ago, I was waiting for an important package that was already 2 days late. There was an email entitled something along the lines of, "your package was damaged in transit" and was coincidentally from UPS. I opened it and ............. uggghhhhhh, I new I screwed up. The return address was gibberish and the text was irrelevant. The next morning, there were hundreds of emails in my junk folder. The following day, even more.

The first thing I did was block the sender, but that didn't work because the return addresses were all gibberish and unique. I went through every one to make sure a real email didn't get caught up by the junk filter by accident. That didn't work, every day there were more, many of which already showed as blocked.

Next step was setting RULES. That doesn't seem to be working either, so my question is is syntax critical when setting up recipients in the rules. For example, I have some from ®iCloud, or .USPS. because that doesn't seem to be working very well either.

I have the rules set up as follows (for example)



Am I doing something wrong, or are these senders far more sophisticated than the Mac junk mail filter? I'm getting between 5 and 50 of these emails every hour. These are from Gmail servers in case that's the issue. For my most important emails that I require absolute privacy like medical and banking, I've switched to Proton Mail. I've had this email address for decades and it would be difficult to emanate them all because SOMEONE would surely get lost in the sauce of changing email addresses for everyone.

 

[IWT]

Your situation is dreadful. I am most terribly sorry.

I'm being very personal now; but I don't think that Apple's Mail Rules are the best option. A further personal offering is that you consider SpamSieve, a highly recognised spam filter.

See here if interested:

SpamSieve: Most Accurate Spam Filter for Mac

SpamSieve is an extremely accurate and easy to use Bayesian spam filter for Mac e-mail programs. Macworld’s “Software of the Year.” Download our free trial here.

c-command.com

This is a pay for App, but one I have had for many a year. I have no connections with the app or its maker. One of our long-term members, Randy B. Singer often recommends this app. And he is not alone.

The method behind the app is that you train it as to what is Spam of any sort and its "brain" uses some sort of software to recognise variations of the offending email such as you are getting now.

Please be assured that my recommendation is devolved of any association with the owner; I am simply a happy customer.

Ian

 

[Jimmysb]

I use Apple mail, but even with other emails, I never rely on the visible "from" and always check the actual email address, especially from unknown or unexpected senders. Also YOU are the recipient, along with any others, it should be "from".

 

[hempomatic]

I use Apple mail, but even with other emails, I never rely on the visible "from" and always check the actual email address, especially from unknown or unexpected senders. Also YOU are the recipient, along with any others, it should be "from".

I thought that was odd as well but assumed that it meant any email addresses I might be using, of which there are 2

I switched it to "message is junk mail". Perhaps that might be more effective?

As far as clicking on the address, it looks totally legit (in many cases), I can't see the actually address until I click on it, and then it seems, it's too late.

 

[pm-r]

The next morning, there were hundreds of emails in my junk folder. The following day, even more.

I don't know what spam filtering you have set up in your Apple Mail.app for your email accounts but you may want to also check with your ISP support folks and email servers and see if they have anything available in their appropriate Webmail application for spam filtering.

If that doesn't help I would certainly support and reinforce Ian's suggestion of possibly using SpamSieve and save you a lot of headaches and wasted time. It is an excellent application and works very well.

But check out your appropriate email account's webmail spam filtering options first as there may be an option that will solve or at least lessen your junk mail problem.

SpamSieve​

SpamSieve: Most Accurate Spam Filter for Mac

SpamSieve is an extremely accurate and easy to use Bayesian spam filter for Mac e-mail programs. Macworld’s “Software of the Year.” Download our free trial here.

c-command.com

Good luck.




- Patrick
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[MacInWin]

I don't think the two events are related. I have also noticed a huge uptick in spam email in the last week. I use SpamSieve, and it's kind of "meh" at blocking the spam for me. I've trained and trained it with probably a couple of thousand messages thus far, but it still misses about half. I use a mail provider that has a pretty good spam filter, but even the mail coming through that has a lot more spam in it. The spammers are getting more and more clever at it.

 

[krs]

I don't know what spam filtering you have set up in your Apple Mail.app for your email accounts but you may want to also check with your ISP support folks and email servers and see if they have anything available in their appropriate Webmail application for spam filtering.

Contacting my ISP (who provides the email service) to find out why they don't filter/block these emails that are obviously spam, like Patrick suggested, would be my first step.

 

[Rod]

100% for Ian's post (#2) I too am a long term user of Spam Sieve (SS). Although I don't use Apple Mail I occasionally have it running in the background in order for SS to filter my mail for my default email client. Sadly, at this time SS is not available for Spark.

 

[hempomatic]

I'll try spam sieve thanks for the recommendation.

 

[krs]

This is weird.
I have six different email adresses with three different providers, one of these adresses I have had for at least 30 years - and I don't get any spam to speak of.
Maybe one or two a month across all accounts.
My ISPs must block them.

 

[hempomatic]

This is weird.
I have six different email adresses with three different providers, one of these adresses I have had for at least 30 years - and I don't get any spam to speak of.
Maybe one or two a month across all accounts.
My ISPs must block them.

I have 2 email servers, Proton Mail (no spam, no issues) and the problem child, Gmail. I've tried dozens of times to use the Gmail filters and preferences with no, or very limited success

 

[rbpeirce]

I use spam sieve and I've developed a routine for junk mail that ends up in my inbox. I add the from address to my blocklist, unsubscribe if possible and train as spam. I still get the stuff but not as much.

 

[hempomatic]

I use Apple mail, but even with other emails, I never rely on the visible "from" and always check the actual email address, especially from unknown or unexpected senders. Also YOU are the recipient, along with any others, it should be "from".

I understand that, and that was originally my approach, however, even though I'll have (literally) 100 emails ALL with "from" as iCloud, telling me they were about to delete all of my photos. (I have never used iCloud) The addresses were all slightly different so using from "iCloud" as the filter didn't work. The same issue applies to McAfee telling me my subscription was about to run out, or USPS telling me my package was returned because it was damaged in transit.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

I use spam sieve and I've developed a routine for junk mail that ends up in my inbox. I add the from address to my blocklist, unsubscribe if possible and train as spam. I still get the stuff but not as much.

Ooooooh never unsubscribe to spam mail. They don’t honor it. All it does is confirm there’s a real person reading and they add you to more spam lists.

 

[toMACsh]

I've not had any problems after I unsubscribe to e-mails from an entity that I have done business with. But I never unsubscribe if it's from someplace I've never had any relationship with.

 

[Jimmysb]

I've not had any problems after I unsubscribe to e-mails from an entity that I have done business with. But I never unsubscribe if it's from someplace I've never had any relationship with.

A very true statement, sometimes it is tempting to unsubscribe, as they seem genuine, but if unsure don't!!

 

[rbpeirce]

Ooooooh never unsubscribe to spam mail. They don’t honor it. All it does is confirm there’s a real person reading and they add you to more spam lists.

Thanks for the tip. I'll just block them and train them as spam.

 

[NSMacGuru]

In the past year or so, junk mail has really gone up to another level. I'm a steadfast user of Apple's built-in Mail program. The Junk Mail buttons, in my extensive testing, appears to do **** well nothing more than move an item to the Junk folder - it certainly doesn't increase the systems automatic junk mail filtering capability.

All this discussion lately about the amazing advances with ChatGPT and AI software... wouldn't it be lovely if they applied that technology to finally ending Junk Mail forever?

 

[hempomatic]

Thanks everyone for your input. It's inconvenient, but I'll live with it until another fix magically appears one day. I was hoping there was a way to mitigate it with tools that were already at my disposal.

 

[pm-r]

and the problem child, Gmail. I've tried dozens of times to use the Gmail filters and preferences with no, or very limited success

Have you opened up the naughty email and expanded the headers and then check with the senders and there's a good chance they may not even be coming from Gmail, but have a check and see.

I don't know if you want to get involved with using SpamCop or not, but that can be a long drawn out process and no real guaranteed success.




- Patrick
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