Big increase in Junk mail

Not sure if this belongs here or in iPad or possibly Lion.
I am getting flooded with spam - ever since I did the following: Upgraded my MacBook Pro to Lion (thereby accessing iCloud more fully); buying a new iPad Mini (increasing my iCloud use). I use Mail on both. I have had the same apple email address for over a decade and that is what I continue to use.
I also have my Mac Pro which I keep running Snow Leopard.
I never was getting the extreme amount of spam like this till the iPad and Lion access to iCloud.
Now, since I use the same email address on all machines, I am beginning to see spill over on my MacPro (Snow Leopard.
I keep increasing Rules on this. I don't know what I can do on the iPad or at the iCloud site level.
I can't image this is a coincidence. After so many years to suddenly start getting inundated with this junk at exactly the same time I began using iCloud via the iPad and Lion on MacBook Pro.
Any suggestions? Thanks

Thanks to those who added to this, though it only seems to confirm my suspicions.
Roger-thanks for the input and suggestion. However, I can't imagine this is as coincidental as you suggest.
I'm not new to Apple, Mail, email, etc. More significantly, I have had the same Apple email address for about a decade. There has always been an ebb and flow of spam. But this is different, and it began exactly when I started using iCloud (Mail on iPad and Mail on Lion via my upgrade on my MacBook Pro within a week of getting the iPad Mini).
I'm not opposed to paying a fee for a app or service to handle this but I am more interested in dealing with the source rather than the symptom, i.e., using iCloud to pass-thru or sync my Mail program's email.
Surely there must be a way to interrupt, block, divert identified spam or junk rather than doing nothing and allowing it (iCloud) to spread it to my different computers.
I want the ability to set up a Rule, as I do in Mail, (that identifies words or senders and deletes them) which can operate at the iCloud level.
Thanks again and any more feedback?

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MY iCloud Mail Bombarded with Junk Mail

MobileMe wasn't the greatest with junk mail, but since the transition to iCloud, my inbox is bombarded with with junk mail every day now. Has anyone else noticed a noticible increase in junk mail after the transition from Mobileme>iCloud.
1) Comcast account - virtually no junk
2) .com webhost account - virtually no junk
3) gmail - virtually no junk
4) iCloud - ridiculous amount of junk

Wow, Nothing like bringing an old thread to life. I still get spam. It's a lot better since I've learned how to set up proper Mail Rules. The Rules only work for high volumes of Junk mail in which the senders address doesn't change. True hardcore spammers know all about rules and how to get around them by constanly changing their address. If Apple can't filter them out at the server level, you don't have much of a chance.
But notice the addresses. If they are consistant, a Mail Rule will help.

My Junk Mail has increased ten fold. It seems that spammers has got hold of my E-mail address has anyone else had this problem recently?

In the last 2 weeks my Junk mail has totally gone viral. I am having at least 10>12 mails a day of junk advertizing. I have never had this prevously have the Apple mailboxes been hacked into?

I had this happen to me yesterday. I got over 160,000 spam emails in 24 hours. Now I can't access my email. I'm able to get to all the other icloud functions tho. Really weird. I have tried on a couple of different computers but NO go. I thought it might have been my computer or OS devices but it won't even let me access my mail on my computer from work. I think I will have to contact Apple support. Anyone have any ideas?

TS4002 How can I change iCloud junk mail settings from my iPhone?

I have junk mail filtering turned on in iCloud. If it incorrectly tags mail as junk it is easy to correct using the web interface but there doesn't seem to be a way to do it from iPhone. How can you mark mail as junk / not junk from iOS? Matters are made worse in that it is not even possible to access the web app from an iOS device?

Yes! Fine if you have a computer and of course that's exactly what I do. But it is a bit frustrating! iOS and iCloud are supposed to be seamlessly integrated and this seems like a big omission. And with the push towards iOS devices being completely independent devices, unhooked from a computer, this seems like something that should be improved upon. Seems minor, but if you use your iOS device as your primary email client it is a real hassle. I'd be surprised if nobody else is frustrated by this. Anyone? How do you go about nagging Apple to sort it out?

A new round of Junk Mail after installing Safari Beta 3.0

In the days since installing and religiously using Safari 3.0 beta on my MacBook Pro with 10.4.9, I am seeing a huge increase in Mail being sent to the Junk folder via Automatic Junk mail filtering. I have not changed any Mail settings. This is mail from sites that I get mail from all the time without it going to Junk Mail Folder. So something has changed, drastically.
I do have the mail Junk filter set to trust my ISP Junk Mail headings (Earthlink). I will turn it off and see if that changes anything. Perhaps Earthlink is doing something new.
But if not Earthlink, I can only wonder if anything changed due to Safari 3.0 install.
Anyone else having this type of new problem?
MacBook Pro 15 inch Mac OS X (10.4.9)

I've had exactly the same problem with junk mail after installing Safari 3. No other recent changes.
So far, retraining on received e-mails does not seem to be taking; good e-mails keep going into junk folder.
MacBook Pro C2D Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Stopping Junk Mail once and for all.

Hi everyone!
Like most everyone I think that spam is rather annoying. I was thinking about how to get rid of it and came up with a very simple yet powerful idea. I've never heard of this way so at least in my own little world I can say I came up with it.
The idea is this: You define a basic set of mail rules. The rules would be this:
- If ALL of the following conditions are met:
+ Sender is not in my Address Book
+ Sender is not in my Previous Recipients
+ Message is Junk Mail
Now of course using the rules that were set above are not at all a great way of defining spam, because someone trying to get a hold of you (such as a potential employer or long lost friend for example) will likely not make their way through those rules, and their message will be marked as spam. Here's where it gets good though! Instead of simply doing a message bounce, you can also add a custom message that goes along with the bounce, as if you were to reply to the spam yourself. Now of course you can make some dirty comments to the potential spammer, but the point of the auto replying is not to be mean or anything of the like. So before going further, here's what would basically happen:
-=-=-=-
I have automatically returned this message to you because I think it is spam.
Original message:
Is your girlfriend happy?!?! bla bla bla
-=-=-=-
Okay now back to the problem: what if the supposed spam message is actually not spam and is important? Well, not a problem! We now use the power of the custom response. Instead of just saying "I have automatically returned this message to you because I think it is spam," we can also add "If this message is not spam, please resend the message and include in the subject line the phrase "we2y9e5". So if the message was indeed a legitimate email and not spam, the original sender can now put the phrase "we2y9e5" in the subject field. And now that can be a custom mail rule! So in the end you'll have:
- If ALL of the following conditions are met:
+ Sender is not in my Address Book
+ Sender is not in my Previous Recipients
+ Subject does not contain we2y9e5
Perform the following actions:
+ Reply to Message [Reply Message Text...]
+ Delete Message
So now if the Sender sends you an email with the subject "we2y9e5" in it, it will no longer be bounced back to them. From there you can add the Sender to your Address Book and have a new lifelong friend.
Of course, if the message was actual spam, the spammer could just go ahead and put "we2y9e5" in the subject line and get through your new shield. This is in no way a problem though, because if people start using this method there's no way a spammer would bother looking for the phrase in an email. Even if they did, it's just a simple matter of changing your phrase and updating the rule that goes along with that phrase. You can even have a little fun and make it like a little puzzle, like "the phrase is the sound a cat makes" or something like that. Just don't make it too confusing, but you get the idea.
No spam means it's far less likely for users to have their computer taken over by those who are up to no good. You won't have to nervously post your email on forums in some weird "this-is[delete this section]my-email [at] yahoo [d0t] com" format. Best of all you'll never have to go through your mail and delete spam again! Give this method a try and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
I have attached some screenshots of how to set it up for those who are like me and would rather go off a picture.
Happy emailing!
http://www.fullarticulation.net/tutorials/spam/antispam01.jpg
http://www.fullarticulation.net/tutorials/spam/antispam02.jpg
http://www.fullarticulation.net/tutorials/spam/antispam03.jpg
~Reckless Ronin
[email protected]
www.fullarticulation.net

There are a number of problems with this approach.
1. You should not reply to spam, since in the unlikely event that the "reply to" or "return path" email address is actually owned by spammers, it will confirm to them that yours is a real, "live" email address. This will get it on lists sold & traded among spammers, increasing dramatically the number of junk messages sent to you.
Note: bouncing spam will usually have the same effect, since (contrary to what you might think) it is easy to extract the "bouncer's" email address from the message Mail sends. Bouncing is really only effective if a human reads the reply.
2. In the more typical case, the sender's address is forged, often with a real address of some entity, perhaps from one of these "known good" lists. Sometimes a real address is chosen specifically to victimize its owner, for instance to damage a reputation or to flood a mailbox -- sometimes this is the entire purpose of the spam.
3. A lot of legitimate email is generated by automated systems with no human involved. Frequently these are alerts or advisories, telling you that if action is required it must be done by other than email means, such as through a web site or phone call. Some ignore all email replies, or take action only on those with specific subject or body keywords. It is often not possible to know in advance the email address this type of message is sent from; thus, you can not add it to Address Book until you actually receive an example.
4. Even if the sender is a human & the message is legitimate, the "I think this is spam" reply may cause them not to resend a second version containing your special keyword for various reasons. Imagine for instance someone on a slow, dial up connection, or on a usage based fee service, or with any sort of quota limits to worry about. Or think about what would be required if some poor soul sent a first-time message to a large group, say for organizing a high school reunion, & many of them used this approach, each with their own special 'not junk' keyword.
Basically, a good, effective junk filter must not generate a large number of false positives, & it certainly should not make things easier for spammers or harder for other users. I urge you to rethink this approach.

(Junk-)Mail and setting up a new computer

Hi all,
Naturally, I do not very often replace my computer, but every time I need to set up a new computer I run into this issue with Mail.app which annoys me.
I am a relatively heavy mail user (I have about 24.000 messages in my inbox on a gmail-account). I usually do not delete any mail, because I use my e-mail as my memory crutch for things past. However, if an e-mail is junk-mail, which I receive quite a bit, I delete it. To help me to sort the good from the bad, I use the Mail.app built-in junk mail control and generally, I am quite happy with it.
But every time I need to set up a computer from scratch, the following happens:
I set up Mail.app with my accounts.
Then I set the Junk Mail preferences to: "Enable junk mail filtering", "When junk mail arrives: Move it to the Junk mailbox". I have my Mailbox Behaviors set to: "Store junk messages on server".
Mail automatically moves tons of my legitimate old mail (this time more than 600 messages) to my gmail junk mail folder. That means I have to sift through the junk mail folder manually and pull out the legitimate mail while leaving the spam.
This is a big problem for me, because potentially I could lose important older e-mails. I have my accounts set up as IMAP, thus the new machine will screw up my older machines, the iPhone and even the native gmail web-interface.
My question: am I missing an "apply junk mail filter only to new incoming mail but leave my old mail alone"-button? Is there a work-around? Anyone else experiences this problem?
All the best.

Hi, Gustavo, and welcome to the Community,
I know it will sound ridiculous, but if the new account was created using your e-mail address, change that account's password to take control of the account! Remove any of your (or their) information - leave all profile settings as "blank" or "not specified." I would recommend changing the passwords of your Skype account and your e-mail account as well, as proactive measures.
Then, please report this incident to Skype Customer Service. Here is a link to the instruction on how to contact Skype Customer Service via their secure portal: Contact Customer Service
As you know you wish to contact Customer Service, skip past Step 2 of the instruction and proceed to Step 3, Continue Support Request.
Best regards,
Elaine
Was your question answered? Please click on the Accept as a Solution link so everyone can quickly find what works! Like a post or want to say, "Thank You" - ?? Click on the Kudos button!
Trustworthy information: Brian Krebs: 3 Basic Rules for Online Safety and Consumer Reports: Guide to Internet Security Online Safety Tip: Change your passwords often!

Apple deciding what is junk mail and creating folders on my Mac

I am becoming far less enthused with Apple. For Apple to be filtering my email, to decided what is OK for me read and what is not, Apple must read my email and decide for me like a Big Brother, reasoning "it's for my own good".
Further Apple has demonstrated that not only can they direct where in my computer information is placed Apple can also create folders remotely in my MacIntosh computer as if Apple owned my computer, not me.
My computer belongs to me, not Apple. I decide what is SPAM and what is not. I decide where information in placed not Apple. I decide if a folder is created not Apple.
With iCloud based email service Apple is not just coordinating your email, Apple is deciding for you what is appropriate for you and where information is to be stored. Its a small thing ownership, but its an important thing. Good people died so we can have ownership.

jimoase wrote:
Csound1 wrote:
jimoase wrote:
Let's assume for a second that no one has a complaint: would there be a problem to solve?
Reasoning that because someone else does something that makes everyone else doing it OK, seems a little weak in the unalienable rights department.
I agree that if you like someone deciding for you what is good for you and what is not appropriate, that is your right to make that decision for you. Neither you or Apple can assume that right for others without their consent. Until the first part of April this year Apple did not make that decision for you.
Has Apple asked you for your permission to read your email and decide/censor what you information you can store in your InBox and what you can not?
More nonsense, Apple do not read your email, or add folders to your Mac, you are living a fantasy.
And please note, you do NOT own OS X (which is what you are actually talking about) you have been granted a license to use it under Apples terms, if you don't like that the answer is clear.
Here is an experiment to try. In Preferences: turn off Junk Mail. Delete the Junk mailbox with in Mail. In a few minutes, depending on your email traffic, Apple will recreate the Junk mailbox and place email in the newly create Junk mailbox.
Who read the email to determine its junk?
Who created the new Junk mailbox?
If it wasn't you, it's either Apple or ghosts. You decide.
I have no intention of allowing your nonsense to affect me.
Do it yourself.

Junk Mail filters

I have been having a problem with the Junk mail filters in Mail. When I send myself an e-mail, such as when an iCal event reminder is in the form of an e-mail, the message gets pushed into my junk mail folder. Every time it has happened, I click on the "Not Junk" button, but the next time I send one, it goes into the Junk folder again. This happened with OS 10.4, and I thought the upgrade to 10.5 would fix it, but it's still happening.
Has anyone else had this experience? If so, did you find a solution to the problem?
Thanks
Kevin

if so, I'd love to hear it as well. I made a big effort to convert my old email life from my pc to the new mac, and figured imail would serve me. Small as it is, this unreliable junk filter may force me to switch again. I hate that.

Junk Mail Core Issue

I have an IMAP account with fastmail.
The good part:
When I manually label any mail that mail.app does not recognize as junk, it is always labeled as junk and then moved to the junk mailbox.
The troublesome part:
I am increasingly noticing that when mail.app automatically specifies an email as 'junk', for about 20% of the time it goes to the junk mail folder, but for majority of the time (80%), it does NOT, and stays in the inbox (and it is not labeled as being junk either). When I click on these emails that mail.app fails to move to the junk folder, mail.app immediately recognizes it as junk and labels it junk, but still does not move it to the junk folder.
If I then manually label these emails as 'not junk' and then relabel it as 'junk', mail.app immediately moves to the junk box.
This is annoying me. Anyone else facing the same issue?

I have this problem as well. I am hoping there is some simple solution like deleting a pref file for junk. I took my computer to the Genius Bar yesterday to get an opinion on it. Although very kind and after spending some time looking at it, they couldn't offer me any solution to correct it other then erase and install. Before going that route I erased and migrated the user back over from Time Machine. The problem was still there so it is some file in that particular user file. Next I guess I will try a Archive and Install. I have seven Macs and only one with this problem.

Junk Mail with text as images

I'm having a few problems with the Junk Mail Filter that I have set up in Mail. The Junk Mail that always seems to get through is that that contains images. Obviously the scumbags that send these emails probably know this is a floor in Junk Mail filters which is why they send the text as an image rather than plain text or even an html email.
I always click "Junk" whenever I receive these but the Apple filter just never seems to remember this and so I always get bombarded by the same kind of email but from different email addresses.
Does anybody have any ideas as to what I can do. Thanks in advance for any help on this very frustrating matter.

You're welcome.
In my case, it takes a few days for each variation of the junk messages. It may miss some junk from time to time, but it becomes apparent immediately that the filter is learning.
There are two things you may try. One is cleaning up your Window > Previous Recipients list. The other is resetting the junk filter (Preferences > Junk Mail > Reset). Although this may initially increase the number of junk messages that Mail fails to identify as such (false negatives), and may also slightly increase the number of legit messages that are incorrectly treated as junk (false positives), it will probably also improve the learning process of the filter.
Note that every time you mistakenly mark as not junk a message that Mail had previously marked as junk (because you click the wrong button when you wanted to do something else, for example), you're storing wrong information in the data files used by the junk filter.

How to set up junk mail filtering in mac mail

Is there a new way to set up junk mail filtering? I have been getting an increased amount of junk mail which the filter seems to allow through. Also, when I select emails and mark them as junk, when I delete them, they "reappear" still marked as junk. Really weird. But I will have to delete them several times for them to disappear out of my IN box. Not sure if this is due to a string of them coming in at once.
any advice out there?

You may find these articles from Apple support helpful.
https://support.apple.com/kb/PH19190?locale=en_US
https://support.apple.com/kb/PH19115?locale=en_US

'Junked' RSS items bug: stuck in junk mail count

I accidentally marked some RSS feed items as junk mail when I clicked the wrong button. This caused the count of unread junkmail in my junk folder to go up, but the RSS feed entries do not appear in the junk folder. Since they don't appear there, I can't mark them as read to eliminate the count of new messages, I can't move them back from the junk folder to the RSS feed, and I can't just delete them.
I have tried removing the RSS subscription from Mail, and I have tried rebuilding Mail's envelope index. Neither of these things worked, as my junk folder still has a count of 19 unread messages, even though there are no unread messages there.
So, what can I do to get rid of these phantom items?

I finally got the unread count to be removed by erasing all my junk mail (Mailbox > Erase Junk Mail). I like to keep my junk mail around for a few days just in case something I need gets put into the junk folder, so having to delete all of it wasn't ideal, but also not a big issue either.

Junk Mail on iPhone?

Is there a way to mark mail as "Junk" on my iPhone with my .Mac Account?
Kevin Hawkins

Thanks for the response. What I see in my .Mac inbox on my iPhone are all messages received with no junk mail sorting whatsoever. For example, I regularly get junk mail from Adamant Global (and may the gods curse them!). During the day when I'm away from my MacBook and am only using my iPhone, these messages show up in my .Mac inbox on my iPhone (my iPhone is set to check my mail once every hour). Unfortunately, my company blocks .Mac webmail, so my iPhone is the only method I have to check my personal email during the day. Only after I get home and wake up my MacBook do these messages get sorted to the Junk Mail box correctly. After this, my iPhone syncs with the server and mirrors the Junk Mail filtering done on my MacBook.
The article you linked is the exact one I used to set up the server-level Junk Mail filtering. I have double and triple-checked these settings to make sure I've got it right and everything looks as described in that article in Mail on my MacBook and on my settings in .Mac online. Is there something wrong with my account? What can I do to fix this?
I have only observed server-level Junk Mail filtering to seem to work correctly on my iPhone (i.e., I see NO Junk Mail on my iPhone during the day, and see new Junk Mail in the Junk Mail folder that never showed up in my inbox on my iPhone, and also on my MacBook when I get home in the evening) on 2 days since the .Mac upgrade (when .Mac storage was increased to 10GB and other improvements). That's what I meant when I said this has been inconsistent to me.
Message was edited by: r6girl

Auto delete junk mail on os x server

Lion Server was deleting mail marked as junk but since the upgrade to Mt Lion Server it stopped. The junk mail now gets delivered. Does anyone know where the setting is to delete mail marked as junk?

Jeff - just a follow up by way of explanation and to help raise your comfort levels!
OS X and OS X Server are special "Apple-flavoured" implementations of Unix.
To provide the "Server" functionality, Apple uses a number of open source software solutions.
Note that this is a simplistic and non-exhaustive list
For Web services - its Apache / PostgresSQL / PHP ( as opposed to Apache / MySQL / PHP )
For Mail Services - its Dovecot / Postfix / Amavis / Spamassassin / ClamAv
They have provided a "GUI" in the form of Server.app and a command line tool in the form of "serveradmin" to manage these services so that an average person can make changes to "some" things that will keep their "state" across OS system upgrades etc. Server.app and Serveradmin wrap a conglomeration of Shell, Perl and Ruby and Python scripts around these services and most of the time ( certainly since 10.8) they work reasonably well.
Apple maintains these "states" through .plist files and direct manipulation of the various config files.
The rule i've found is - anything that has a setting in server.app and or serveradmin should be set via those mechanisms.
Anything else is fair game!
But at the heart of it all - services like Mail are just Apple-wrapped implementations of open source software.
Why am I telling you this. Because there is a wealth of information on the interweb regarding these chunks of software, their configuration and troubleshooting. You just have to supply the "how does this fit in the OS X" context.
The first thing to do in your quest for that context is to make sure the "locate" database is up to date -
$ man locate                                      #( for info on the command)
$ sudo /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb     #( to update the locate database - I think its part of the weekly maintenance script??)
$ locate -i clam                                  # ( the -i to ignore case)
might give you a list in part that looks like this ....
/Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/System/Library/ServerSetup/CommonEx tras/63-setup_clamav.sh
/Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/System/Library/ServerSetup/Promotio nExtras/63-setup_clamav.sh
/Library/Logs/Mail/clamav.log
/Library/Logs/Mail/clamav.log.0.bz2
/Library/Logs/Mail/clamav.log.1
/Library/Logs/Mail/clamav.log.2.bz2
/Library/Logs/Mail/clamav.log.3
/Library/Logs/Mail/clamav.log.4.bz2
/Library/Logs/Mail/clamav.log.5
/Library/Logs/Mail/clamav.log.6.bz2
/Library/Logs/Mail/clamav.log.7
/Library/Logs/Mail/freshclam.log
/Library/Logs/Mail/freshclam.log.0.bz2
/Library/Logs/Mail/freshclam.log.1
/Library/Logs/Mail/freshclam.log.2.bz2
/Library/Logs/Mail/freshclam.log.3
/Library/Logs/Mail/freshclam.log.4.bz2
/Library/Logs/Mail/freshclam.log.5
/Library/Logs/Mail/freshclam.log.6.bz2
/Library/Logs/Mail/freshclam.log.7
/Library/Server/Mail/Config/clamav
/Library/Server/Mail/Config/clamav/clamd.conf
/Library/Server/Mail/Config/clamav/freshclam.conf
/Library/Server/Mail/Data/scanner/clamav
/Library/Server/Mail/Data/scanner/clamav/db
/Library/Server/Migrated/private/etc/clamd.conf
/Library/Server/Migrated/private/etc/freshclam.conf
/Previous System/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.clamav.clamd.plist
/Previous System/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.clamav.freshclam-init.plist
/Previous System/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.clamav.freshclam.plist
$ cat /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/System/Library/ServerSetup/CommonEx tras/63-setup_clamav.sh    ( print the file to terminal) use "less" instead of "cat" and you can go back and forth in the file with the B and F keys ( q to quit).
This file is just a shell script that sets up the ClamAV on the system when Server.app is installed. It shows the permissions and owners that should be on various files. How do you increase the log level to debug for clam so you can see whats going on ?
$ sudo serveradmin settings mail:postfix:virus_log_level = "debug"
www.krypted.com provides a whole bunch of info on OS X Server setup, log levels etc. - Why not have a look?
cheers
Gerry

Big increase in Junk mail

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