How to force emails from a specific sender to not be automatically put in the junk mail folder?

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17 points

How to force emails from a specific sender to not be automatically put in the junk mail folder?

I signed up for a forum and I get emails when someone responds to a thread I posted on that forum. Everything I have tried, does not seem to prevent those emails from going directly to the junk folder. As you can see here, this message is in the junk folder despite having put the contact in my contacts app:

I searched all headers in this email and there is no junk marking in them. I also checked the inbox in the exchange webmail interface and it is in the general inbox in that interface. So it's Mail.app which is putting it in the junk folder. How can I prevent that from happening? So frustrating. Why is this so hard?

iMac Pro

Posted on May 7, 2019 12:26 PM

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Answer 1

May 7, 2019 2:36 PM in response to hepc@72

You have a business name. Remove it. Just have the address alone in contacts with no business name or personal name.

Sorry. I was thinking it was an iCloud address it was being sent to. My mistake. Yes, you are correct on that part.

If nothing works including reseting the Junk filter, the only other thing I can say would be to try creating a rule for a sender containing that address and perform an action. Since there is no action to make a message not junk, maybe try moving the message to another folder and stop evaluating rules.

You might even disable Junk Filtering in Mail just to see if the messages continue to be marked as Junk. That may shed some light on what's happening.

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Answer 2

May 7, 2019 12:34 PM in response to hepc@72

Open up Mail's preferences and check to see what options you have set for junk mail. Make sure the correct option of contacts are exempt from filtering is checked.

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Answer 3

May 7, 2019 12:46 PM in response to hepc@72

Does the sender match exactly what's in your Contact list? If not, fix it so it does. If so, try unchecking the Trust junk mail headers and Filter Junk Mail before applying rules.

If that doesn't work, then you may have to Reset the Junk Mail Filtering.

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Answer 4

May 7, 2019 1:06 PM in response to hepc@72

Remove the sender's name from your contact application and just have the email address there listed in it. It's probably different names using the same address that is the cause of the problem.

An additional suggestion:

It is possible that this address if being filtered by Apple at the server level. Log into the iCloud.com website and verify that the address if also listed in the Contact application there to verify that your contacts are syncing. You might try marking as not junk there and see if it makes a difference for future messages.

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Answer 5

hepc@72 Author

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17 points

May 7, 2019 1:01 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

I pasted the screencap of the email as shown in the email and in the contact card, but it's probably too cropped to get that context... so yes, they are exactly the same. Rather, the email address is exactly the same. The sender's name is different, and there's no way to predict that. I'd have to have a separate contact for everyone with an account on the forum. But seeing as how it would be illogical to base the junk mail exemption on however a user annotates their name compared to how it exists in my contact card, I think it's safe to assume that it's only the email address that counts.

Thus, I just used the reset button under the junk mail filtering preference tab. If the next email from the forum is marked as junk, I will provide an update.

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Answer 6

hepc@72 Author

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17 points

May 7, 2019 12:37 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

Yes, I should have mentioned that I checked that:

Messages from senders in my contacts are supposed to be exempt from being marked as junk mail, yet here we are. And again, as I mentioned, there is nothing in the headers that mark the email as junk by the mail service.

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Answer 7

hepc@72 Author

Level 1

17 points

May 7, 2019 12:39 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

Yes, I should have mentioned that I checked that. Messages from senders in my contacts are supposed to be exempt, yet here we are... I also checked all headers for a junk label and checked the inbox on the exchange webmail interface and it's in the inbox there.

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Answer 8

hepc@72 Author

Level 1

17 points

May 7, 2019 1:16 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

iCloud syncing is working.

There already is no name in the contact card. I have it entered as a business. See the second attachment in the original post.

The email was sent to my princeton email address, which is an exchange account. I don't know if that matters WRT Apple's server marking it as junk. The email is in my inbox on icloud.com and the "to" email address is my princeton email. If the server is marking it as junk, wouldn't that fact be evident in the message headers?

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Answer 9

hepc@72 Author

Level 1

17 points

May 7, 2019 12:40 PM in response to hepc@72

Sorry for the double post. The first post wasn't showing up even after 5 page reloads, so I sent again...

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How to force emails from a specific sender to not be automatically put in the junk mail folder?

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