How do I stop spam?

I am trying to stop emails from someone that sends dozens of spam emails every day. I have tried everything I can think of to stop this but no success. The rules I apply just don't work any longer.

iMac 27″, macOS 10.14

Posted on Jan 31, 2023 8:01 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 1, 2023 12:55 PM

Spammers change their email address and subject matter continuously to avoid Mail rules.


In Mail, select a single representative email message received from the spammer you want to filter. Then in Mail > Preferences > Rules, either create a new rule, or edit an existing rule.


There will be a default rule that starts with [ From ]. Click that selector and you will see a long menu of choices. At the end of the menu is Edit header list… Choose that, as you want to add a new head field named Return-Path. Exactly in this spelling.


Now, near the top of that secondary menu, you will see Return-Path. Choose that to replace the default [ From ].


You should now have:


If [ any ↕︎ ] of the following conditions are met:


[ Return-Path ] [ Contains ↕︎ ] [ <gibberish> ]


As soon as you select Contains, the Return-Path gibberish will auto populate for the selected email message.


The Return-Path is enclosed in angle brackets and gibberish is usually some unique account information string followed by the email address of the Return-Path Mail server, and then potentially, your email address too. Using arrow keys and backspace, you want to reduce that gibberish to just the real spammer.com server address in the following fabricated Return-Path string:


<1234-&zxy.iamspammingyou@spammer.com#&bounce.youremail@some.domainblah>


If the spammer owns their own Mail Server, then they also have control over what the Return-Path string may include, even if that Return-Path header is empty (e.g. <>). The Mail rule will handle emtpy content like this too.


Once that is done, you can deal with the Rule action:


Perform the following actions:


[ Move Message ↕︎ ] to mailbox: [ Trash ↕︎ ]


When you click the OK button, a dialog will appear requesting to apply that rule to the selected email message and if you agree, that selected message will be thrown into the Trash, as would all future incoming spam emails from that Mail server — regardless of what appears in the From header field.


You can then clear your Junk and Trash folders via the Mail > Mailbox > {Erase Deleted Items, Erase Junk Mail} menu items.





7 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 1, 2023 12:55 PM in response to zoeller

Spammers change their email address and subject matter continuously to avoid Mail rules.


In Mail, select a single representative email message received from the spammer you want to filter. Then in Mail > Preferences > Rules, either create a new rule, or edit an existing rule.


There will be a default rule that starts with [ From ]. Click that selector and you will see a long menu of choices. At the end of the menu is Edit header list… Choose that, as you want to add a new head field named Return-Path. Exactly in this spelling.


Now, near the top of that secondary menu, you will see Return-Path. Choose that to replace the default [ From ].


You should now have:


If [ any ↕︎ ] of the following conditions are met:


[ Return-Path ] [ Contains ↕︎ ] [ <gibberish> ]


As soon as you select Contains, the Return-Path gibberish will auto populate for the selected email message.


The Return-Path is enclosed in angle brackets and gibberish is usually some unique account information string followed by the email address of the Return-Path Mail server, and then potentially, your email address too. Using arrow keys and backspace, you want to reduce that gibberish to just the real spammer.com server address in the following fabricated Return-Path string:


<1234-&zxy.iamspammingyou@spammer.com#&bounce.youremail@some.domainblah>


If the spammer owns their own Mail Server, then they also have control over what the Return-Path string may include, even if that Return-Path header is empty (e.g. <>). The Mail rule will handle emtpy content like this too.


Once that is done, you can deal with the Rule action:


Perform the following actions:


[ Move Message ↕︎ ] to mailbox: [ Trash ↕︎ ]


When you click the OK button, a dialog will appear requesting to apply that rule to the selected email message and if you agree, that selected message will be thrown into the Trash, as would all future incoming spam emails from that Mail server — regardless of what appears in the From header field.


You can then clear your Junk and Trash folders via the Mail > Mailbox > {Erase Deleted Items, Erase Junk Mail} menu items.





Feb 2, 2023 7:00 AM in response to zoeller

I would slightly modify the content to be less user (e.g. newsx132) specific and just focus on all crap coming from the following. You can drop the angle brackets, or it will be always be explicitly trying to match <132@ingamded.nl> and never match it because there is other text before and after between the brackets. If you leave only the following, the contains clause will match it and your rule will fire.


ingamed.nl

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