Stop Apple Mail from moving incoming mail to the trash folder

Question

Level 2

402 points

Stop Apple Mail from moving incoming mail to the trash folder

How do I get apple Mail to stop sending certain email recipients straight to the trash?

I have a small handful of emails that I get from businesses that I want to receive... but as soon as they are downloaded, Mail moves them to the trash folder. It is far from all of my emails, but simply a few specific legitimate businesses (Topaz Labs, Adobe, Handyman Magazine, and about two dozen others). Each one of these senders has never been marked as junk in the mail app. Each one of these businesses are companies that I either have subscriptions to, or have ordered online from. Each one of these businesses have sent me emails to where I click on various links in the email to pull up their web sites. I have also categorized the senders as "Priority" for the app's inbox categories.

This has been ongoing for a few years, and the amount of senders this has been happening to grows every few months. Now it is at the point of past being annoying.

I should add that this is roughly 10% of my incoming email. The other 90% goes to the correct folders. There has to be a fix, but I haven't found it yet. Any suggestions?

Yes, I do keep my operating system up to date. I'm pretty OCD when it comes to updates.

iMac 24″, macOS 26.1

Posted on Dec 2, 2025 3:03 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 2, 2025 6:12 PM in response to gsyrba

Here are the most likely causes, ranked:

Old Mail rules (most common)
Server-side filters on Gmail/Outlook (extremely common)
Accidental blocked sender / Junk Mail behavior
Categorization mistakes
Metadata corruption in Mail

One of these will be the cause.

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Answer 2

6x6

Level 6

19,245 points

Dec 3, 2025 8:42 AM in response to gsyrba

Would this help for #2: https://help.aol.com/articles/use-filters-to-sort-and-organize-messages-in-aol-mail?

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Answer 3

gsyrba Author

Level 2

402 points

Dec 3, 2025 7:36 AM in response to azaksalmarzur28

Thank you for replying! Here is what I know, and do not know. Also, I am the only person that has access to my account, so I can't blame others, and I'm pretty OCD when it comes to settings and rules.

Definately not. I never set rules for any of these particular senders other than categorization.
I had to Google this one to be sure I was understanding it correctly. Is there any way to correct this if it is the server side?
No, I know it's not this one. Not saying I don't ever do anything by accident, but simply that I checked before making this post. That took a while - lol
Same as #3
I went through the steps to do this one this morning. I haven't received any mail yet today from any of the senders that have been going to the trash. We'll see.

I forgot to mention in the original post that while I do use the Apple mail app on my iPhone, iPad and iMac... I have two email accounts. One is with my iCloud email (which this problem is NOT happening on)... the other is with the old AOL account that I keep for my photography business, and this is the one the problem IS happening on. Not sure if that matters for your previous reply.

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Answer 4

gsyrba Author

Level 2

402 points

Dec 3, 2025 10:42 AM in response to 6x6

So I signed into AOL mail on a browser, which I don't think I've ever done before. It's always been through the app. Anyway, it was simple to find the link. Apparently I have never set a filter at all through the browser, so there are not a single one to edit. All my filters are set on the Apple mail app.

So digging further, there is a place in the browser version on how to take emails that are being sent to the spam folder and have them go to the inbox instead. But the thing is, these emails that I am referring to do not even go to the spam folder. When they are incoming they go directly to the trash folder... unlike everything else that I mark as spam in the Apple mail app which does go to the spam folder.

So anyway, I went through the steps for the Topaz Labs email from 20 minutes ago that went directly to trash - I did what you are supposed to do with things going to Spam that shouldn't... directed it to the inbox, which AOL says is the fix. Funny thing, I've tried the same in Apple mail, and it sends the single email there, but not any follow up emails. Aaaaaand after doing that, I saved changes, logged out of the browser, logged back in to Apple mail, went to select "Get mail" and coincidentally, Topaz labs sent out a Black Friday email just a few minutes ago, which went directly to trash.

I do appreciate the link! Still not the solution, but there are a few settings I'd like to customize through the browser version to see what happens with my non-problematic emails.

Quick edit... Now any email from Apple is going directly to Trash. That's new as of the last 20 minutes. Maybe the solution is to rename the Trash folder "Inbox #2" (haha)

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