Emails I send to regular contacts keep going into their junk. Emails that bona fide contacts send to me go into my junk. This I'd say started happening about a year ago. It means that if I send an email to a client I have to wonder if they got it!

NickClarkDesign wrote:

More and more I'm finding that emails I send to regular, email contacts keep going into their junk. Also emails that bona fide contacts send to me go into my junk. Why has this so?? It started happening about a year ago. It means that if I send an email to a client I have to wonder if they got it or not! For a business, or anyone this is just ridiculous and potentially very costly. What are apple doing to fix it? Reading through many other complaints of the exact same nature, I imagine absolutely nothing.

When and how will apple fix this?

How do I as a user of Mac Mail sort it out?

Thanks for your replies in advance.

Mac Mail in

No where do I see clearly who provides your troubled email—

Not all email host are the same...

Mail goes to Junk

*If you use a non-iCloud SMTP server, don't use your iCloud email address as a "Send From" address. Otherwise, your email might not deliver or it might deliver to the recipient's Junk folder.

ref: Get help using iCloud Mail - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203528

> What are apple doing to fix it?

Why do you think this is Apple's problem to fix?

Spam has been around almost as long as email itself. Over the years mail providers have stepped up their efforts to identify spam and prevent it from clogging up users inboxes. If your mail is ending up in spam then it's because the nature of your emails makes it look like spam. You can't blame Apple for that.

All the major providers use heuristics to score messages as likely (or not) being spam. It is most often the recipient's provider who apply the final nail, as it were, so if you're sending mail to a gmail user then it's Google who are flagging your mail as spam, not Apple (this includes google-managed domains, not just @gmail.com addresses). Same for Microsoft-hosted domains.

You need to look at your messages and see why other domains think you're spam.

Are you using your own domain? or a generic address (e.g. @iCloud.com, @gmail.com, @live.com, etc.)

If using your own domain, have you updated your DNS records to correctly indicate authorized mail servers?

If using your own outgoing mail server, have you verified it only processes valid mail and isn't an open relay for other spammers to bounce off?

Is the email address you're sending from legitimate (not a generic 'info@'). Can this address receive mail?

All of the above (and more) can be used by the remote mail server when determining how much to 'trust' the message. That's before it even looks at the content to see what you're saying.

In summary, spam is an endemic problem with no single silver bullet to fix. You have never, ever, had a 100% chance of every email getting to a user's inbox (let alone them actually reading it), but it is your responsibility to make every effort to make sure your emails don't look like spam.

>> So I reply to someone with whom I've had good and constant email contact with for years and my reply goes into their spam and you suggest I should look at the content of my mail? What a weird answer.

No. That's not what I said. In fact I listed four or five issues that are applied BEFORE the content of the email is even considered.

Please re-read my earlier response.

Maybe your mail server is an open relay and the receiving server doesn't trust your mail server, regardless of what it says.

Maybe your domain isn't correctly configured so receiving servers don't know that your mail server is legitimately sending email.

Maybe someone else is using your mail server to send spam and you're caught in the cross-fire.

There are lots of possibilities. Without seeing the emails in question it's all speculation, but the actual content of the mail is only (a small) part of why you're getting flagged as spam.

<sigh> I tried. Good luck.

The email is filtered after it leaves your machine. What are you expecting the solution to be? As in life, you cannot change the behavior of other, you can only change your behavior.

Robert