Mail & Spam

I gather that you have never taken Mail's Junk Mail filter out of training mode:

1. In Mail/Preferences..., before sure to check Enable junk mail filtering.
2. Check Move it to the Junk mailbox (Automatic).
3. Having done this, you should regularly check the Junk mail mailbox. Unflag any false positives.
4. Continue to flag Junk that eludes the Junk mail filter.

 

SpamSieve

I am a most satisfied user of SpamSieve http://c-command.com/spamsieve/. Only rarely do I get false positives and tech support is excellent.

That app, uses a Bayesian algorithm plus some other magic to determine which incoming emails are spam, and then consigns them to the Spam folder. It even color-codes them according to how "spammy" they appear to be.

But the contents of the Spam folder still must be manually sent to the trash. Ergo, my choices: 1) individually dragging the emails to the trash, or 2) “selecting all” and dragging them to the trash.

Fortunately, SpamSieve also makes a Script http://c-command.com/scripts/spamsieve/apple-mail-discard-spam that deletes the contents of the Spam folder. And that works as designed. But, it requires one to 1) launch the script and then 2) click on the Run button. Not a big deal, but I was wondering if I could streamline the process even further by adding a keyboard shortcut to the process. And voilà, Shortcuts https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/37661/shortcuts to the rescue. Now, the contents of my Spam folder are deleted with a (user-defined) shortcut.

In sum:
1. SpamSieve identifies and sends spam to the Spam folder
2. I review and confirm that the contents are all spam
3. I execute the shortcut activating the Delete Script and poof, the spam is gone!

FWIW: I was hoping that I would merely have to install the app and then the magic happens. Not quite. There is some set up required, but take it slowly, step-by-step, and the benefits are worth the effort. In addition to the great tech support (usually same day), there is a developer monitored forum.

 

Use a service to filter prior to the mail server. Manually filtering spam is just an exercise in frustration IMO.