I receive emails from my own email address, but I didn't send them. The message is blocks of letters and symbols.

I have three email addresses: icloud, gmail, and comcast. This morning I received an email in my comcast inbox with my own name as the sender. I clicked on my name and all three addresses popped up. The subject line read "Every woman's fantasy." (Huh?) The message contained two long blocks of letters and symbols. Between the two blocks was a link, which is attached and which I did not open. At the top of the page was a yellow alert: "Mail thinks this message is Junk Mail." Any suggestions as to what happened here?


iMac, macOS 10.12

Posted on May 15, 2024 7:02 AM

Reply
Question marked as Best reply

Posted on May 15, 2024 7:04 AM

Clearly spam. Delete and ignore. Expect to get more of the same.


Spammers can drop any name they want into the sender field. That it's your own doesn't mean anything in particular.

4 replies

May 15, 2024 1:04 PM in response to Stephen DeBock

You can test an email with this Apple Script from VikingOS. I compiled it as an application in Script Editor and run it from the Dock when I select a suspect email:


****************************************************************

-- return-path.applescript
-- Select a given message item in Apple Mail, and then run this script. It will produce a dialog
-- showing the sender's From and Return-Path addresses. Copy the entire Return-Path
-- string into the right-window of an Apple Mail rule.
-- This script *does not* alter, or remove individual email messages.
-- VikingOSX, 2019-10-23, Apple Support Communities, No warranties of any kind

use framework "Foundation"
use AppleScript version "2.4" -- Yosemite or later
use scripting additions

property NSString : a reference to current application's NSString

property NSRegularExpression : a reference to current application's NSRegularExpression

property NSRegularExpressionCaseInsensitive : a reference to current application's NSRegularExpressionCaseInsensitive

tell application "Mail"

	if not it is running then activate

	if not (get selection) is {} then

		set theMsg to item 1 of (get selection)

	else

		return

	end if

	tell theMsg

		set theSender to its sender

		set theHDR to its all headers

	end tell

end tell

set rtnpath to my return_address(theHDR) as text

set fmsg to "Sender Address:" & return & theSender & return & return & ¬

	"Return-Path:" & return & rtnpath

display dialog fmsg with title "Current Mail Item Addresses"

return

on return_address(atxt)

	set hstr to NSString's alloc()'s initWithString:atxt

	set pattern to "(?<=Return-Path:|Return-path:)\\s+<(.*?)>.*"

	set regex to NSRegularExpression's regularExpressionWithPattern:pattern options:NSRegularExpressionCaseInsensitive |error|:0

	set hrange to current application's NSMakeRange(0, hstr's |length|())

	set matches to (regex's firstMatchInString:hstr options:0 range:hrange)

	if matches = "" then return "Not Found"

	set matchrange to matches's rangeAtIndex:1

	return (hstr's substringWithRange:matchrange) as text

end return_address

**************************************************************


I receive emails from my own email address, but I didn't send them. The message is blocks of letters and symbols.

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.