Did you check Previous Recipients s well??
To make sure the Mail app in Mac OS X and macOS does not filter as spam messages from known senders:
- Select Mail > Preferences from the menu in Mac OS X Mail.
- Select the Junk Mail tab.
- In the section labeled The following types of messages are exempt from junk mail filtering, place a check mark in the box in front of Sender of message is in my Contacts.
- Optionally, check Sender of message is in my Previous Recipients as well.
- Close the Preferences window.
Add known senders to your Contacts to prevent Mail from filtering their emails out as spam.
Messages Going to Junk Mail Even Though Junk Mail Filtering is Off
Add any sender you want to protect from spam filtering to the Contacts application on your Mac. You can do that easily from an existing email.
- Open an email from a sender in the Mail app.
- Highlight the sender's name or email address at the top of the email by moving your cursor over it.
- Select the arrow that appears at the end of the highlighted name or email address.
- Select Add to Contacts from the drop-down menu to open the information in the Contacts application.
- Enter any additional information for the contact and select Done.
This method of whitelisting protects individual email addresses, but it doesn't apply to entire domains. You can whitelist "sender@example.com" by adding that address to your Contacts, but you can't whitelist all mail coming from the "example.com" domain. However, you can whitelist domains by writing a Rule in Preferences.
