Does Apple Mail's 'Move to Junk' tell the Mail Server the mail is Spam?

[jagooch]

Does Apple Mail's 'Move to Junk' tell the Mail Server the mail is Spam?

My email is hosted with Fastmail, which uses machine learning to train the server as to what I think is spam in addition to any built-in spam filters.

In their email Web GUI, I have a "mark as spam" button the moves email to the spam folder and also tell the machine learning "engine" that I think the email is spam . That way it can mark similar messages as spam in the future.

However, I usually use Apple Mail as my mail client. When I use the "Move to Junk" feature, does my Apple Mail client communicate with the Fastmail server so that it knows to consider that email as spam for future email filtering?

Or is the feature 100% local so perhaps it "teaches" Apple mail to consider that kind of email as spam for the purpose of mail filtering?

 

[BrianBaughn]

Fastmail has advanced options for folders including "spam learning" as described here:

Setting up and using folders

How do I create a folder?

www.fastmail.com

I would assume that the Spam folder has that option ON but you'll have to confirm at the web interface.

 

[Red Menace]

I doubt it - the stuff you are talking about is for messages that have already been sent to the client. What you consider spam might not be for someone else, or might not be considered spam at all (advertisements from affiliates or political stuff, for example).

Some spam filtering may be done by the various servers involved, but the more fine-grained stuff is usually left to the client. There may be a “report message as spam” selection to flag an item for further investigation, but for the most part the server filters need to be more general-purpose to avoid false positives.

 

[BrianBaughn]

I doubt it - the stuff you are talking about is for messages that have already been sent to the client. What you consider spam might not be for someone else, or might not be considered spam at all (advertisements from affiliates or political stuff, for example).

Some spam filtering may be done by the various servers involved, but the more fine-grained stuff is usually left to the client. There may be a “report message as spam” selection to flag an item for further investigation, but for the most part the server filters need to be more general-purpose to avoid false positives.

I guessing you didn't read the Fastmail page to which I linked.

 

[pmiles]

Apple's Mail has a junk mail filter... it filters mail as it is received to the client... so it must be sent to your inbox to be flagged as junk mail. Apple's filters do not intercept the mail before it is sent to your mail server (which you do not host, your ISP host this).

Your ISP has junk mail filtering as well, but as noted by Red Menance, it is only going to filter that mail which would globally be considered junk mail to anyone... it is filtered from reaching each users' individual inbox as it reaches the mail server. So your mail client has nothing to do with that sort of filtering.

Fast Mail sounds like a mail client... as such, it acts like Apple's Mail which is also a client. You can specify what is and is not considered junk mail and it "learns" to filter mail based on that information. Not bulletproof but better than nothing. In a nutshell, the mail must be sent to this client AFTER having passed through the mail server to do its thing. A client and a server are not the same thing. Only the ISP configures the mail server. You can configure your client, but it's only your client. You can bounce email as junk in which mail servers will flag the senders as potential SPAM, but doing so also informs them that your email is valid... which is something you never want to advertise to a SPAMMER. Best to just delete the email than bounce it.

Ultimately, all email addresses get inundated with junk mail and no amount of filtering will save you from the SPAM. At that point in time, you change your email address and start the process all over again. If you are getting a lot of SPAM now, it means they already know your email address and its only a matter of time before nuking that address becomes the only sane solution.

 

[Red Menace]

I guessing you didn't read the Fastmail page to which I linked.

I did, but note that things that contains mailbox folders like that would be a client, not a server.

 

[jagooch]

Update: Apple Mail's Junk Mail processing is local only. So "teaching" it what I think in Spam doesn't affect Fastmail's Spam filter.

I was hoping to avoid creating an second “Spam” folder, but it looks like it’s either that or use the Web interface instead of Apple mail. I created a “Spam Trainer” folder , and I configured Apple mails “Move to Junk” to put emails there. That will create harmony between the client and the server

I noted in the settings that the Fastmail Spam folder itself isn’t for training the Spam folder, which I guess makes sense in case it gets a false positive. I’ll think of it as a “possible Spam” folder going forward.

Thanks for the replies.

 

[BrianBaughn]

That sounds like a good solution and good use of the feature provided by Fastmail.

 

[GlenK]

I just want to turn Junk Mail off but nothing seems to work.

 

[BrianBaughn]

I just want to turn Junk Mail off but nothing seems to work.

To prevent junk mail completely you'd have to conjure up something server-side at your email provider's webmail access.