Spam/Junk mail--am I "sending" spam?

I have been receiving a large amount of junk mail lately--50+ messages a day. I also have been receiving a large amount of "rejection" messages from accounts that I don't even know from places all over the world.
From reading some threads here, it seems that an infected Windows machine somewhere that has my email address may be sending these rogue messages....
This morning I got a message from my mail provider stating that I have exceeded my "daily limit" on outgoing messages...I'm not sure if this was an issue with their server (an hour later it worked fine) or if my Mac is actually sending some rogue messages or if an infected machine is actually using my mail server/account to send messages.
Thanks!

Infected or not, no machine can actually send spam through your email account unless it has that account's password. The fact that you are receiving both lots of spam & lots of rejection notices indicates that your email address (but not your password) is probably on one or more spammer's "known good" address lists. These lists provide not just target addresses for spam but also forged sender ones to make spam look more legitimate to others.
Your provider probably imposes limits on the number of messages you can send, the size of each message, the number of recipients per message or per day, or some combination of these. If you are sure you know the limits for your account & have not exceeded any of them, you should contact the provider to find out why the notice was sent, since this may mean that someone does have your account password.

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HT4865 Spam/junk mail

How can keep spam/junk mail from getting in to my inbox? Lately I've been inundated (on a daily) with spam.

Add your contacts to VIP folder. Quickly go through regular folder and if you see anything that you need move to VIP as well, delete the rest. Using VIP for contacts allows to concentrate on important. I have been using Hotmail like that, they allow to use inbox for contacts only and everything else goes to junk. Takes me one minute a day to purge through 50 emails, pull two or three that I need and delete the rest.

Junk mail confusion - is this spam?

I have long been confused by certain behaviour of Mac Mail.
When Mail identifies spam (on my Mac, at least), it marks it by changing the text colour in the preview pane brown and moves it to the Junk folder, as per my preferences.
However, I get some mail which does not qualify as Junk Mail or Spam as, according to the rules, it is from a previous recipient but Mail leaves it in the Inbox (or moves it, depending on my custom rules) and marks it by making the background of the preview pane brown but the text is still black.
If I click on this mail and mark it as spam, it then moves to the Junk folder. If I then click on it and mark it as not spam, it changes to the normal black text on white background in the preview pane - so there is something which makes me think that this is related to Junk/Spam. I have messed around with flags but they do not seem to have anything to do with this.
I really don't have a clue why this happens and have searched for years to find out without any success.
Any ideas?

In addition to Corky's suggestion on the right hand side of your profile page is this box:
Click Manage email notifications. This manages any current email notifications you are receiving.

SPAM/JUNK MAIL

hi,
We are using exchange 2013 and office 365. all the configurations have been done well and we are up and running, however users complain they receive junk mails. i have enabled the policy in the content filtering i.e. apply sensitive word list and SPF record,
but still get junk emails.
i do not wish to apply policies, that will be block genuine mails as well.
kindly help me on this.
K.R

Hi,
I suggest double check the content filtering configuration if you sure the issue is caused by the content filtering feature.
I also find an article on Anti-Spam and Antivirus mail flow for your reference:
Understanding Anti-Spam and Antivirus Mail Flow
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa997242.aspx
Thanks
Mavis
Mavis Huang
TechNet Community Support

Spam/Junk mail button

So where exactly are the "Spam" or "Junk Mail" buttons in iPhone OS

The iPhone's mail client does not include a junk mail filter.
With an IMAP account, you can leave the email client on your computer that is used for accessing the account launched and running, which includes a spam filter. You can store the account's junk mailbox on the server with an IMAP account. Any message received that is marked as junk with the email client used on your computer for accessing the account (and moved to the account's junk mailbox stored on the server) will be reflected automatically when accessing the account with the iPhone's mail client. All server stored mailboxes with an IMAP account are kept synchronized with the server automatically with each email client used to access the account.

A Ton of Spam / Junk Mail - How to Make it Stop?!

I'd say over the last two months I'm receiving about 3-4 dozen "spam" messages. When it started I had not done anything particularly "different" on my iMac that would have triggered this. I noticed all the spams are sent from various "mac.com" accounts and have a similar "look" (as if they created by the same designer but always different messages) if that is any help. For a while I "bounced" the messages (in the past this seems to have ceased such spam) but no dice. Last weekend I upgraded from 10.6.8 to Mavericks and again, absolutely no difference. In fact, I do not even see a "bounce" option in the Mavericks mail program anymore. My email has always identified these as spam but they are still floating around in my inbox "marked" as spam while some go into the Spam -- either isn't the issue; my issue is stopping the mail in the first place!

Chris Holub1 wrote:
I don't understand why all this spam is happening in the first place. I don't have a very active online presence...
When spam goes way up or way down a lot of times it is not directly about anything you personally did. Unfortunately that also means that you usually can't initiate any specific action that will stop it. Some examples for instance. One recent spam flood I determined to be related to a specific email address that I had given to one company, and that company's email database got hacked, so all of those addresses fell into the hands of spammers. In another case, I could tell that I got certain spam because a friend's computer got hacked and so her email address book was acquired by spammers. In both cases it was nothing I did. In both cases it was not about my "online presence." In both cases my email was in the possession of a trusted business and a trusted friend, not published in public, and it was what happened to them, not to me, that caused my email address to be leaked out into the wrong hands. There is nothing I could have done to prevent it, except to not use email to communicate with those trusted parties (not a realistic option in most cases). The only thing that helps is to use an email provider with a trainable spam filter that is known to work well.
The good news is that the spam level can often goes down on its own, although it can come back up later due to another random event.

Spam/Junk mail elimination

Recently the junk/spam mail has increased tremendously. I've bounced, applied rules and it doesn't seem to help.   I have Mail Version 4.5 (1084). I really don't want to continue to apply rules daily. Any ideas?

Hello Patricia,
You can relieve much of the pressure by following Apple's well written guide ...
Mail > Help > solving problems.   It takes time and patience to go through it all but your reward will be seen in a much improved Mail.
One thing I noticed ... "I've bounced".   This is generally thought of as an unwise practice.   Most spam is sent out more in hope than expectation.   The spammer hopes there will be someone to con at your address and the very act of bouncing mail clearly indicates the address is live.   Just ignore and delete.
Hope this helps you.

'Undeliverable Mail Return To Sender' spam?

As of late, we have been getting 'undeliverable mail' which appears to be spam. The long headers appear to indicate that it is indeed coming from our mail server and the body of the message goes something like this:
This is the Postfix program at host nopali.com.
I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not be
be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below.
For further assistance, please send mail to <postmaster>
If you do so, please include this problem report. You can
delete your own text from the attached returned message.
The Postfix program
<[email protected]>: host 127.0.0.1[127.0.0.1] said: 550 5.7.1 Message
content rejected, UBE, id=21361-04 (in reply to end of DATA command)
Reporting-MTA: dns; nopali.com
X-Postfix-Queue-ID: 7260D27DAB9
X-Postfix-Sender: rfc822; [email protected]
Arrival-Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2006 04:10:46 -0500 (EST)
Final-Recipient: rfc822; [email protected]
Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0
Diagnostic-Code: X-Postfix; host 127.0.0.1[127.0.0.1] said: 550 5.7.1 Message
content rejected, UBE, id=21361-04 (in reply to end of DATA command)
From: "Ronald Myers" <[email protected]>
Date: December 23, 2006 4:11:11 AM EST (CA)
To: [email protected]
Subject: Because that is curious girdle, and Hormah, and some therefore,
...and there is generally a spamish content underneath.
Has anyone encountered this?
I thought perhaps that somehow others were able to use my mail cue, but I closed the firewall for SMTP mail to only favourable IPs. However, when I look at my mail cue, I see a bunch of things waiting to be sent out. They appear to be a bunch of spam that the server trying to return. The cue would typically have this message:
Message ID: 266692764C8
Date: Thu Dec 21 13:31:52
Size: 6742
Sender: MAILER-DAEMON
Recipient(s) & Status:
[email protected]:
connect to wc.wachovia.com[169.200.182.108]: Operation timed out
It appears that the server is trying to return spammed mail to sender and it is timing out. I am not sure, though. This would not make sense since I have spam being redirected to a separate spam_depot account.
Any ideas on how to figure this one out?

I can't tell you if this is a wise decision for your setup, you need to make that call.
You are getting into settings which stray far from the GUI and the support of Apple, venture forward carefully..
The comments within the amavisd.conf file and threads in this forum contain most/all of what you may require. Spend time reviewing the config file. all of it's options, the flow of amavis (well documented) and how amavis links to postfix...... then out of thousands of possible configurations you can make the decision of what is best for your server.
Some hints... (which were documented in an earlier thread)
The GUI sets tag2 and sakill_leveldflt the same:
$sakill_leveldeflt = $satag2_leveldeflt;
You can change this so that one set of actions is performed at tag2 and a more extreme action at the kill level. something like this works well for a well trained server:
$satag2_leveldeflt = 3.0
$sakill_leveldeflt = 6.0;
When the kill level is reached, the finalspamdestiny action is performed. If you bounce or reject, you will generate bounces in your queue. If you discard, the no bounce is generated. Even if you discard, you still have a quarantine.
The default is to quarantine the spam as files in /var/virusmails Many people never look in this folder, and it can easily fill-up. Look in your settings for something like this:
$QUARANTINEDIR = '/var/virusmails';
you can comment this to:
#$QUARANTINEDIR = '/var/virusmails';
to disable the quarantining to a directory.
You can quarantine to an email address, read the file, it's pretty clear.
Take the time to read through the file. Make changes one at a time and allow plenty of testing between changes. Make any files you change. Be sure to stop/start mail service to activate changes.
Jeff

I am getting bulk junk mail and the sender is using my email address. How do I stop it?

They do not come into my main account, only through Thunderbird. I email myself sometimes, so I cannot make a filter to block myself.

In most cases, someone has acquired your email address and is simply pasting it into the "From:" box when he builds and transmits his spam messages. He hasn't "hacked" your account, and he isn't sending from any equipment you have any control over. Changing passwords almost always has zero effect, since he isn't logging in as you. Have you ever found any of these messages in your Sent folder?
You started a thread, then posted a reply in a separate thread. It's easy enough when you get an email notification of a reply to your thread, as the link in the email will bring you straight here.
If you want to add to your own thread, look in your "profile" here on this forum to find a list of your previous postings. Or bookmark your thread in your browser.
John99 has simply joined your two threads together to help anyone trying to help you.
Since you have no control over what any 3rd party does on his own computer (or more likely, an "owned" or hijacked computer) you can't stop him.
Anyway, why bother with a filter if the bad messages are being placed into Bulk or Spam? Your email provider's anti-spam system would appear to be doing its job. And if they aren't labelled as Spam or Junk, don't be afraid to do so yourself. Good spam and junk filtering is bit more sophisticated than just looking at the ostensible "From:" address; it will also be looking at IP addresses and checking against blacklists for known spam sources, and using heuristics to identify patterns.
Plus what finitarry said. ;-)

Is my mac mail sending spam?

I have 4 different emails for various business that I own.
Today I got an email from one of my own accounts to that same account. It's about some kind of Canadian online pharmacy.
I know I did not send it.
What should I do about this?
For a few weeks I've been getting emails bounced back to me saying undeliverable to a certain address. I'll look at the email and it's not one I've sent or know anything about? I just delete and move on. However I'm getting about 20 of these spam emails a day. Very frustrating.
What can I do?
-Drew

Many spammers obtain email addresses that are legitimate and use them as the From or Reply To addresses on the spam they send out. This is to prevent normal junk mail filters from sending their spam to the junk mail or trash folder.
Not much you can do about it besides changing your email address then installing software for anonymous browsing and email. This may not be a good solution for business usage unless all your recipients know who you are because such software hides where the email is from.

Junk mail issues

i have at least three email addresses that always end up in as junk mail, even after adding the addresses to my contacts list, my VIP list, and modifying junk mail settings. WTH?!!? Any suggestions?

Hello ,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.l
You can train Mail to stop thinking those messages are junk mail.
Filtering Junk Mail: Mail automatically detects junk mail messages (also called "spam") and visually identifies them by displaying them in brown text in your inbox. If Mail mistakenly marks something as "junk", you can click the Not Junk button to help train Mail. If a message isn't marked as "junk" but should be, click the Junk button to help train Mail to better identify junk messages.
Mac Basics: Mail (Mac OS X v10.6 and earlier)
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2500
Take care,
Alex H.

Does it make sense to mark an email messages that are in junk mail folder as junk

Hello,
I see that some of email messages that are in my junk mail folder are in different color and marked as junk. However, some emails in the folder are not marked as junk. Most of these unmarked emails are put there because of my rules. The question is: does it make sense to mark these messages (in junk email folder) as spam/junk manualy? Will email spam detection engine learn somethig from it?

If the messages are really junk, then mark them as junk. That will help Mail detect similar messages as junk, even if your rules miss them.
If the messages are not junk, but you have set rules to junk them for some other reason, don't mark them as junk. If you do mark them, you may start missing other messages.

Deleted junk mail keeps appearing

I have a problem with Apple Mail. There are several junk emails that I delete, they go to Trash, and I delete them there. But they keep reappearing in Junk Mail.
The dates on them are the original dates. It seems as if I can't delete them.
Has anyone had this problem?? Is it something "coded" in the emails themselves?
Thanks for any help!!!!

two of the gmail accounts (jeffersonculture and schwartzbeer) and the modwest account (BRNW).
I wouldn't have posted the comment if this wasn't happening. I've used the spam/junk mail filters directly on the gmail & modwest online accounts in question. I am still getting the spam on the Mail client.

How to never get junk mail

Help ^^^^

Greetings christopherfromnewnan,
Thank you for visiting Apple Support Communities.
It would be great to never receive spam / junk mail. There are several strategies that can help reduce, and hopefully eliminate, the amount of junk email you receive. You can find some good tips in these articles:
iCloud: Identifying and filtering junk mail - Apple Support
iCloud: Why am I getting junk mail (spam)? - Apple Support
All the best,
Jeremy

How do I send junk mail to spam on my iPad and iPhone?

How do I get rid of junk mail. The more I unsubscribe the more I get. Can you send to spam on iPhone or iPad?

I suggest you rely on your email service provider to do that. If you're not happy with your provider's filtering, Gmail has a good reputation for filtering spam.

Spam/Junk mail--am I "sending" spam?

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