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Mail: Gmail spam Issue
#53162 12/20/19 01:33 AM
Joined: Dec 2009
kevs Offline OP
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Not techinally Apple issue but who knows:

A client today said my normal email , website base email, I use for everything --replying to her unsolicited inquiry was in her spam folder. (I told her to train it not spam)

I think I lose more business per year from this one issue than anything else.

But there is nothing I can do right? Gmail, will lump me - a self employed visual artist - who is responding to a potential client who has emailed me first— in the same folder with spammers who are sending out 100 million email unsolicited a day.

If this is correct and there is nothing Ican do, then curious why this trillion dollar company can’t get this right..

Last edited by dianne; 12/20/19 04:43 PM. Reason: Moved from "Mac OS X Applications."
Re: Mail: Gmail spam Issue
kevs #53170 12/20/19 03:21 PM
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There are many reasons your email messages may end up in spam, or trash, or never even delivered and it is pointless to blame Google. If you insist on assigning blame then those most responsible are the spammers who make spam detection so necessary. This article deals with the issue in greater detail than I am willing to go into and is a good place to start.

A final note; be prepared to spend some money and be aware there is no single solution or group of solutions that will guarantee 100% delivery to everyone’s inbox!

Last edited by joemikeb; 12/20/19 09:54 PM. Reason: Correct link

If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Mail: Gmail spam Issue
joemikeb #53176 12/20/19 06:52 PM
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kevs Offline OP
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Thanks Joe, well of course is the fault of spammers. It's like crime, if no criminals, we could all leave our doors unlocked. The spammers create the tension.

But this is not mass mail.
I do those too, but I'm careful not to use my core email for those.

This prospective client emailed me out of the blue, and my reply email, to her unsolicited inquiry (I don't use for mass emails) went her spam.

Hence I do this Gmail, does not have it's act together and is way over aggressive on legit replies. Will read article. -- Ah, your link is not working I don't think.

Last edited by kevs; 12/20/19 06:53 PM.
Re: Mail: Gmail spam Issue
kevs #53177 12/20/19 06:58 PM
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Yup! Bad link.

I'm stuck with AOL for my email, and they've actually moved mail from people on my contacts list to spam. crazy


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Mail: Gmail spam Issue
artie505 #53178 12/20/19 09:56 PM
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I corrected the link. I'm still not sure what was wrong with it in the first place, but I tested it and it is working now.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Mail: Gmail spam Issue
kevs #53179 12/20/19 10:07 PM
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Originally Posted By: kevs
This prospective client emailed me out of the blue, and my reply email, to her unsolicited inquiry (I don't use for mass emails) went her spam.

I see you are a visual artist, so I wonder if the emails you send have graphical works attached. If so, that could be part of the problem.

I went through the other side of this issue several years ago in another city and the problem was due to the ISP's spam filtering system. My issue was that I was getting legitimate email from major corporations but it was going to my spam box because it had graphical attachments. In one case, the email was from an airline and the attachments were tickets.

This happened a long time ago but, as I recall, the ISP mail went through the filtering system of a company who was in the spam filtering business. Therefore the parameters were wide (e.g. if it has an attachment, it must be spam) and the ISP did not have a lot of control over it.

In order to get it resolved I actually had to arrange for the airline to talk to the ISP who then had the filtering company enter some kind of exclusion in the software. Long story short, you may be dealing with an issue that isn't easy to fix.

My suggestion would be that you consider using a two-email approach. Send one plain-Jane email (just text), to the prospective client advising that you are going to send another email with the works they wish to see. Explain that some email systems look at any attachment as a spam email and ask them to keep an eye on their spam box for your second email.


ryck

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Re: Mail: Gmail spam Issue
artie505 #53181 12/20/19 11:22 PM
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Originally Posted By: artie505
I'm stuck with AOL for my email, and they've actually moved mail from people on my contacts list to spam. crazy

HISTORY LESSON: In the very earliest days of the internet AOL (who actually preceded the World Wide Web) became by far the largest internet portal and email service provider in the world and retained that market dominance by providing free, easy access and virtually zero oversight. This made them very popular with spammers who would create an account, using false identities, use it to send tens of thousands of spam messages, then abandon the account and disappear in a few days — often in less than 24 hours. Complaints about spam were sufficient to attract the attention of federal and state Attorneys General resulting in AOL coming under intense scrutiny, punitive legislation, huge fines and court orders to prevent users from sending Spam. When the dust settled, what is left AOL is a tiny shell of what was one of the first internet empires.

As a result AOL has some of the most baroque and draconian spam filters in the free world. Anyone who sends lots of emails, especially if those emails are prone to having a rich graphics content can find themselves on someone's list of suspected spammers, but AOL's list is arguably the easiest one to get on. (Google's is arguably second.)


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Mail: Gmail spam Issue
joemikeb #53182 12/20/19 11:59 PM
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Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Anyone who sends lots of emails, especially if those emails are prone to having a rich graphics content can find themselves on someone's list of suspected spammers, but AOL's list is arguably the easiest one to get on. (Google's is arguably second.)

But when text emails from my daughter or a friend, both of whom are on my AOL contacts list, wind up in spam, it's simply unforgivably lousy data processing.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Mail: Gmail spam Issue
artie505 #53188 12/21/19 03:27 PM
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Originally Posted By: artie505
But when text emails from my daughter or a friend, both of whom are on my AOL contacts list, wind up in spam, it's simply unforgivably lousy data processing.

Don't get me wrong, I am not defending AOL, in fact I firmly believe "friends don't let friends use AOL'. But unless you ONLY access your email via AOL's webmail interface, Mail (or whatever client software you are using on your Mac or iPhone) could easily be responsible for the messages ending up in spam.

It is also possible that some SMTP server between you and your daughter tagged the messages as "possible spam" based on heaven knows what criteria. At that point AOL and/or Mail and/or any other anti-spam tool you may be using is presented with a quandary from conflicting identifications. If you dig deep enough into your settings in Mail, AOL, SpamSeive, etc there is almost certainly a setting to honor such tags.

It is also possible that this is the result of overzealous anti-spam protection features on the part of AOL or simply a programmers choice of which identification is dominant. There are a lot of ways that could be coded but as Abraham Lincoln pointed out, "...you cannot please all of the people all of the time".


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Mail: Gmail spam Issue
joemikeb #53199 12/22/19 01:17 AM
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Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Originally Posted By: artie505
But when text emails from my daughter or a friend, both of whom are on my AOL contacts list, wind up in spam, it's simply unforgivably lousy data processing.

Don't get me wrong, I am not defending AOL, in fact I firmly believe "friends don't let friends use AOL'.

I'm not with AOL by choice. Verizon bought them, moved their entire email operation to their platform, and gave me an option to retain my @verizon.net addresses, albeit on the AOL platform, switch to @AOL addresses, or move to Gmail... No brainer!

First, I'll clarify that those emails never got to Mail; they were segregated as spam at the AOL level.

Second, they came from longstanding contacts, were totally innocuous...limited to "Si!" in some cases, and not at all likely spam candidates.

Third, the problem never recurred after I deleted the senders from and added them back to my AOL contacts list.

Your guesses are all reasonable, but I'll hang my hat on an AOL glitch.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire

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