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Emails from One Contact Going to Junk Folder

I am running Mojave on my 2 yr old iMac. The Mail program works fine with one exception. Recently, emails from one of my contacts always go into my Junk folder, rather than my Inbox. I have gone into Mail Preferences, and have checked the following:

Enable junk mail filtering

Move it to junk mailbox

Exempt from junk mail filtering:

Sender of message is in my Contacts

Sender of message is in my Previous Recipients

Trust junk mail headers in messages


Can someone please tell me if any of these settings are incorrect, or is there something else I need to do? It is important for me to receive emails from this contact, so cannot have them going undetected and buried in the large junk folder. Thanks


iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Jul 9, 2020 11:09 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 9, 2020 7:45 PM

David:


The "Junk Mail" settings you have been telling us about, those are all set within Apple Mail. Right?


And those are the same as you've been using for longer than the last "week or two". Right?


Then. All this could be explained by AOL starting to use a new "Junk Mail" filtering system, in that time frame.


I recommend you log into your AOL Email account, through a browser, and see what "Junk Mail" settings your email account has set, at that end.


(They may even have a new "policy" or other announcement concerning "Junk Mail".


I'm sure they believe they are trying to help you, their customer.)

6 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 9, 2020 7:45 PM in response to Joey C 2

David:


The "Junk Mail" settings you have been telling us about, those are all set within Apple Mail. Right?


And those are the same as you've been using for longer than the last "week or two". Right?


Then. All this could be explained by AOL starting to use a new "Junk Mail" filtering system, in that time frame.


I recommend you log into your AOL Email account, through a browser, and see what "Junk Mail" settings your email account has set, at that end.


(They may even have a new "policy" or other announcement concerning "Junk Mail".


I'm sure they believe they are trying to help you, their customer.)

Jul 9, 2020 12:54 PM in response to Joey C 2

Joey C 2:


Those settings look reasonable.


However, a few notes:

  1. Check to make sure the headers in the messages from that person are not declaring the message as Junk! By your settings, that may override the sender being in your Contacts or your Previous Recipients.
  2. Make sure the email address exactly matches what you have in your contacts!


If there's no problem with the aforementioned potential issues, then we've got more "digging" to do: like what mail service you are using and what "Junk Mail" processing they may perform even before it gets to your device.

Jul 9, 2020 1:11 PM in response to Halliday

The message headers are not an issue, and the address matches exactly. I have been trading emails with this person regularly for five years and this problem just began a week or two ago. That is the oddest part about this. I am using AOL service and the Apple Mail program. Would appreciate hearing any other ideas. Thanks

Jul 10, 2020 6:23 AM in response to Halliday

Thanks for the suggestion. I was unable to find a general settings change for Spam within AOL In looking at their FAQs I found a similar complaint, and the answer was to click on the Sender name within an email, then click on Not Spam. Supposedly that will allow the Aol program to learn that sender is not spam. Why that would overrule the fact that the person is in Contacts sounds bizarre, but... I will have my friend email me today to test that. As a fallback, I have a seldom-used Gmail account I just brought into Mail this morning, so my friend can switch over to that one for communicating with me.

Emails from One Contact Going to Junk Folder

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