I use the mail app on my iphone to check my apple (iCloud) mail. I get a lot of spam, which I move junk. However, moving these emails to junk doesn’t do anything to mitigate. I continuously get these same emails daily in my inbox. How can this be fixed? Is there a way to automatically send mail to the junk folder if the sender is not in my contacts list? (Please note that I’m asking about email - not messages, not phone calls.)
iPhone XS, iOS 16
Hello iGuy3,
We have a few suggestions that will help mitigate the junk mail in your iCloud inbox. We hope they'll work for you.
First, review the suggestions outlined in Report and reduce spam in iCloud Mail. Reporting the mail as junk will eventually train your account to treat incoming mail from the same account as junk, but until then you can use the techniques below to help reduce the amount of spam you receive in the future.
Reduce future spam
To help reduce the amount of spam you receive in the future, you can use the techniques below.
Don't open suspected junk email
Delete any messages that look like junk mail before you open them. Learn how to delete emails on your iPhone or iPad and how to delete emails on your Mac. You can also manage junk mail on iCloud.com.
When you open an email that looks like junk mail, it can alert spammers that their message was received and opened from an active email account.
Adjust your Mail Privacy Protection settings
Spammers use the email image-loading feature to determine whether your email account is active. Here's how to keep images from loading automatically:
On your iPhone or iPad
1. Go to Settings > Mail > Privacy Protection.
2. Turn on Protect Mail Activity.
Learn more about Mail Privacy Protection on iPhone
Use an iCloud email alias or Hide My Email with iCloud+
You can use an iCloud email alias to prevent junk mail from being sent to your primary iCloud email address. For example, you can use your primary iCloud email address for emailing friends and family, but use an email alias for online registrations, purchasing products, and joining mailing lists. This makes it easier for you to monitor the sources of unwanted messages. With an iCloud+ subscription, Hide My Email lets you generate random, unique addresses to share with websites or apps and keep your personal address private.
Learn how to create and use an email alias on iCloud.com and how to use Hide My Email in iCloud+ on your devices.
Then ,if you're getting spam from the same senders, you might set up some mail rules to send those emails directly to the Junk folder. This article will show you how to do that from the iCloud website.
Regards.
Hello iGuy3,
We have a few suggestions that will help mitigate the junk mail in your iCloud inbox. We hope they'll work for you.
First, review the suggestions outlined in Report and reduce spam in iCloud Mail. Reporting the mail as junk will eventually train your account to treat incoming mail from the same account as junk, but until then you can use the techniques below to help reduce the amount of spam you receive in the future.
Reduce future spam
To help reduce the amount of spam you receive in the future, you can use the techniques below.
Don't open suspected junk email
Delete any messages that look like junk mail before you open them. Learn how to delete emails on your iPhone or iPad and how to delete emails on your Mac. You can also manage junk mail on iCloud.com.
When you open an email that looks like junk mail, it can alert spammers that their message was received and opened from an active email account.
Adjust your Mail Privacy Protection settings
Spammers use the email image-loading feature to determine whether your email account is active. Here's how to keep images from loading automatically:
On your iPhone or iPad
1. Go to Settings > Mail > Privacy Protection.
2. Turn on Protect Mail Activity.
Learn more about Mail Privacy Protection on iPhone
Use an iCloud email alias or Hide My Email with iCloud+
You can use an iCloud email alias to prevent junk mail from being sent to your primary iCloud email address. For example, you can use your primary iCloud email address for emailing friends and family, but use an email alias for online registrations, purchasing products, and joining mailing lists. This makes it easier for you to monitor the sources of unwanted messages. With an iCloud+ subscription, Hide My Email lets you generate random, unique addresses to share with websites or apps and keep your personal address private.
Learn how to create and use an email alias on iCloud.com and how to use Hide My Email in iCloud+ on your devices.
Then ,if you're getting spam from the same senders, you might set up some mail rules to send those emails directly to the Junk folder. This article will show you how to do that from the iCloud website.
Regards.
Hello iGuy3,
You can create rules for Mail on iCloud and Mac, but Mail on iOS doesn't currently support rules. If you create a rule on the iCloud website, it would apply to all of your devices, but there doesn't appear to be a way to move emails from addresses not in your contacts.
If you'd like to leave feedback you can do that here: Product Feedback - Apple
Thanks.
Thank you for many detailed suggestions!
Unfortunately, none of your suggestions respond to my request. And, none of your suggestions will do anything to reduce the spam I receive.
For any of your suggestions to work, spammers would need to be honest users that consistently use the same email address, with the same alias, on every email they send. But in the real world, spammers change their address 5 times an hour, every hour, forever!
The ONLY effective solution to spam will be for the IOS email app to offer an option to route email from any address not in my contacts to the junk folder.
My request was and is for a method to route email from any sender not in my contacts to a folder of my choice, such as junk. If Apple does not wish to add this feature, I am willing to install a reliable, non advertising, 3rd party product on my iPhone if someone will recommend one.
Or, if there is a way I can write a rule within IOS to allow me to move any email from any sender not in my contacts to a folder other than my inbox, please provide an example of such a rule.
A rule to move email from senders not in my Contacts, to my Junk folder, would be great. I have submitted enhancement requests to Apple for this, two and four years ago.
Since Apple does not make it possible, is there a 3rd party developer that offers such a solution?
It seems strange that Apple would not act on this issue. Probably every one of their staff gets just as much spam as the rest of us.
Apple solved a similar problem with unsolicited telemarketer phone calls by enhancing IOS with the Phone option to “Silence Unknown Callers.”
And Apple solved a similar problem with unsolicited spam text messages by adding the filter for “Known Senders.”
Why won’t Apple provide a similar email option for moving email from senders not in my Contacts to the Junk folder?
Junk Mail from sender not in my contacts
