Junk mail filter not working

This has been happening to me as well. For several months now, I have been receiving 10-50 Junk emails each day that show up in my inbox. I right-click and move them to Junk folder in the hopes that the Junk filter will learn to move them, and being careful to NOT open the message. I also did a reset on the Junk filter about one month ago with no changes in the Junk filter behavior.

I have contacted Apple support. The first time, the suggestion was to block the senders. I tried this and it does stop some of the mail from going to my inbox. However, the blocked messages end up in my Trash folder and are shown as 'Read'. I still find a huge number (similar amounts of messages each day) that are showing up in my inbox.

My second contact with Apple support is still open. I have a scheduled call back later this week (Wednesday, March 8, 2023). They have collected data/files from my Mac and are looking into why the filter is not working.

Other notes:

1. It is happening on only one of my four iCloud email addresses. This is the address I have used for ecommerce.
2. All the Junk mails have similar characteristics, although the messages are broad spectrum and the subjects run from sex to computer virus protection and everything in-between.
3. My wife's email is also getting these Junk mails, but her Junk filter is moving them in the Junk folder. She has not had any show up in her inbox.
4. This is showing up on all my devices, which include iPhone, iPad, iMac, and MacBook Air. All devices are up-to-date with latest versions of iOS and MacOS.
5. It also shows up on my iCloud account - it is obviously something happening with Mail at the server level.

Hello Mlemass,

Thank you for reaching out to Apple Support Communities.

Let's review the steps outlined here to block your junk mail:

Mail

From the Mail app, open the email that has the contact that you want to block, then tap the contact at the top. Tap Block this Contact.

More details can be found here: Block phone numbers, contacts, and emails on your iPhone or iPad

If the issue persist, can you provide a few more details? Which iPadOS version are you currently using? Does this happen with multiple accounts?

Cheers!

The latest Apple callback was scheduled for this morning at 8am. They did not call back today. However, I have been on the phone with them 3 times since my first post here (March 6, 2023).

My Junk Mail filter appears to working now after I made one change in the Mail settings on my iMac. One more detail is that I have set up a number of mail filter Rules that exist in my iCloud Mail Settings. The support people looked at this and said there should be no issues with my use of these rules to filter my messages on iCloud. The change I made was to uncheck the "Filter junk mail before applying my rules" checkbox in Mail Settings on my iMac. Here is what it looks like:

This box was checked when the problem began several months ago. I had checked it because I had set up rules for my mail messages on my iCloud account, so that my mail would be sorted identically on all my devices. So immediately after the 'uncheck', junk mail began filtering directly into the Junk folder! I then removed all the blocked sender addresses from the earlier attempts. Junk mail began to show up again, but it was mostly filtered into the Junk folder. The few that did enter my inbox were moved to Junk.

So for the last several days, I have only seen a few junk emails show up and they are being filtered into the Junk folder. No junk mail has shown up in my email inboxes.

Did you ever find a solution to this? I posted a similar question, have done similar things as you (called Apple, etc.) and still getting junk in my inbox. I've been doing all of my filtering on iCloud directly and still don't have a solution. Apple seemed confused too & said they would be looking into it

I do not think they are calling me back. Each my prior calls were basically me giving them information with no solutions from them. I decided to experiment with the 'uncheck' box for my own reasons.

This morning, after posting here last night, I received 12 junk emails to my inbox. I moved them to the Junk folder.

Overall, the number of junk emails I receive has diminished significantly since I 'unchecked' the box "Filter junk mail before applying my rules"

Note that it does not make sense that this check box would have this effect based upon what it says. The Apple representative agreed with me and told me he would provide all my input back to the engineering team. And the callback scheduled for yesterday morning never came.

Junk mails are back. This morning I had 31 total junk mail messages show up. Only 8 of those messages were filtered directly into my junk folder. the rest were in my inbox. No choice but to manually move them into the junk folder.

I will consider posting about this again, but moving to an iCloud/Mail thread instead of iPad/Using iPad. It is clearly not iPad related and likely impacts all users of Apple Mail services.

I have moved my post to an iCloud thread:

iCloud email Junk filter does not work! - Apple Community

Bob

The only other thing I'll say is that this is not an iPad issue. This should be categorized in an iCloud email category because it is not device dependent.

Ok I will try that. Thank you! If you would please update after your call with Apple, I would appreciate it - especially if they have some suggestions that work for you

So far this hasn't worked for me - I'm receiving just as much junk in my inbox as I have been (for the last few weeks - in the past I've had no trouble).

Something has changed on the iCloud server.

Will you please post the link when you get a chance? I'd like to move there, too, and pile on.