I only have my MBP spam settings to set to move spam or suspected spam to my trash. It works, there is no spam in my inbox and usually about three in my trash. On my iPad is a different story, I get about 15 a day. ???

Deafening silence?

I don't think it's a mystery. On your MBP you can write a rule that eliminates spam so that you never see it. On the iPad, you can't.

I have the same problem…I write rules to send spam into the ether so that I never see it on my iMac, but it shows up on the iPad. And then, as the first pain in the butt, I go through two steps to get rid of it on the iPad - first delete and then empty trash. The iMac is a simple Command-x.

The second pain in the butt is that I can't expand headers on the iPad so there's no value in forwarding it to the ISP or others who deal with spammers.

My advice? Just have a glass of wine and accept that there are somethings sent to try us and not much we can do about them.

The only spam settings on my MBP are to put spam in my trash folder. I then send them with headers to my ISP. Everything else is blocked at the server level. Like I said, there are about 15 a day on my iPad and about 2 on my MBP, in the trash. Doesn't explain what is happening.

What do you see when you log in to your email server?

There are several possibilities but I suspect it lies in minor differences in your account setup. This leads me to a few questions…

1. Am I correct that you are not running SpamSeive or a similar anti-spam tool on your Mac?
2. Is the account(s) POP or IMAP?
3. ON YOUR MAC — Mail > Preferences > Junk Mail
   1. Is Enable Junk mail filtering enabled?
   2. What is selected for…
      1. When ink mail arrives
      2. The following messages are exempt from junk mail filtering
      3. Trust Junk mail headers in messages
      4. filter junk mail before applying my rules
   3. If Perform custom actions is selected
      1. what conditions have you specified?
      2. what actions have you specified?
4. ON YOUR IPAD — Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars (NOTE: from this point on the options will vary depending on the individual email account, whether it is POP or IMAP and if it is IMAP what mailboxes you have set up on the IMAP server. I have three IMAP accounts and POP account and what follows is different for each one of them so give the best answers you can
   1. Touch the continue arrow (>) that appears next to the account name then scroll down to Advanced and touch the advance arrow (>) on the right
      1. What Mailbox behaviors are listed?
      2. What options are available?
      3. If you click on the advance arrow to the right of those selections what mailboxes are available?
   2. NOTE: in the case of POP accounts this may be moot.

All my email accounts are POP, MBP and iPad. There are no options related to junk mail or filtering on my iPad. On my Mac, I have junk mail filtering, but it all says to put suspected junk mail in my trash...

Does enabling Junk Mail Filters on my Mac keep them from even downloading? Doesn't just put them in the trash? My rules say put junk mail in the trash.

Edit: Yes, it is frustrating that the iPad will not show full headers and my ISP will therefore not investigate them.

Just logged in to the server. There are all the spams I've been getting on my iPad. Marked them as spam. Let's see what EarthLink does. Someone is generating domain names containing 30 or more characters made up of random combinations of English words. Don't know what this is about but have brought it to Earthlink's attention several times and I don't understand why they can't come up with an algorithm (if that is the right word) to recognize these domains as fraud.

So all those spams are on your server, and while only some show up on your MBP, all do on your iPad?

Can your MBP be disposing of the others "invisibly", somehow?

(My recent spam has all been spoofed: eku, yahoo, and amazon...awfully difficult for a server to deal with, I imagine.)

Are they really spoofed, other than the eku? Mine appear to come from a legitimate source but when I look at the headers, they are actually coming from the long, weird domain names I spoke of.

Nope, they're not real; they're all typical spams.

The account that's getting them is the one I closed because of the eku spam, but on a hunch, I subsequently tried to activate it in Mail prefs, and lo and behold, I've got an email account that my ISP doesn't know about, i.e. it's not counted towards my limit. At any rate, the account doesn't get any real email...only spam.

Back to the chase, if those spams are on your POP server, they've got to be getting to your MBP and somehow being deleted invisibly, right?

Yes, somehow my MBP is blocking them from being delivered from the ISP. It has to be the Junk Mail Filtering. "Trust Junk Mail Headers in Messages"? Everywhere else says to put junk mail in the trash and color it grey. So, maybe now that I have specified those messages in EarthLink webmail as spam, EarthLink may catch them before they reach the iPad. What I really don't like about these spams I described is those weird domains ask for port access (Little Snitch). Probably just to download their self-hosted images. It's probably OK in the case of the iPad because images on those emails don't load anyway.

I just ran across this while playing around with my mail settings.

Could it be the reason you never see those spams even though they must be being d/l'ed to your MBP?

Don't think so. Scroll down to the bottom of this page to see my settings:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/slolerner/albums/72157662399920719

Not that I can see any way to turn the trick, but the pop-up I posted refers to this pane in Mail prefs.

Nope, junk mailbox is set to never empty and I have it set so all junk ends up in the trash. Oh, well. Since I marked spam on the webmail site, it has stopped on the iPad, so let's see if that holds.

If your email is IMAP, you can set a spam rule on your desktop, and as long as its awake when the email comes in, it will move it, and that move will be effective on your iPad, since IMAP syncs folders across devices.

"….as long as its awake when the email comes in…" And therein lies the rub - as a security caution I don't leave machines unattended. Once I'm finished, I log out and the machine is put into sleep mode.

If iOS gave me the same functionality as OSX, I could write a rule on the iPad to prevent the spam making a return trip (and I could expand headers so it could be forwarded to the agencies that deal with it). However, it doesn't so I'm back to my original solution…

You can easily lock your computer which is what I do.

First go into your security settings and make sure it's set to ask for your password immediately after screensaver begins.

Next, open Keychain Access (in the Utilities folder) and in its preferences, show keychain access in menubar. You can quit keychain access after checking that.

There should be a black padlock in the menubar on the top right by the clock. One option is Lock Screen. Voila. Walk-away security without sleeping.

(you may also need to set the computer to not go to sleep automatically with inactivity too)

Okay, thanks, I'll give it a shot. Although I am going to miss those glasses of wine.

Oh, wait….I just got an email that starts: "I am Vice Chairman of Hang Seng Bank, I have Important Matter to Discuss with you concerning my late client that shares the same last name as yours, Died without a NEXT OF KIN."

All I have to do is send him my private email for details. Ooo eee, muskie. I may get to buy Jon's bridge yet.