This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Email Scam settings

  • 11 cavab
  • 1 has this problem
  • 16 views
  • Last reply by pappagone

more options

Is there a way to edit/alter the scam settings in Thunderbird? I know you can either enable or disable the filter but there is no way (that I could see) to add a sender into a safe list so it doesn't get flagged each time it comes in. Something along the lines of how allow remote content from a certain sender works.

Is there a way to edit/alter the scam settings in Thunderbird? I know you can either enable or disable the filter but there is no way (that I could see) to add a sender into a safe list so it doesn't get flagged each time it comes in. Something along the lines of how allow remote content from a certain sender works.

All Replies (11)

more options

Do you get scam warnings for senders that are in your address book?

You can read about the current state of the subject in reports like this one:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=320351

more options

No they are not in my address book but from senders that I know are not scam, like newsletters, etc. I don't want to have to add every single newsletter, announcement, etc into my address book to keep that scam alert from happening.

That link you posted was interesting. It went back ~15 years with people still complaining about the same issue, not being able to teach it what is not a scam message. I am surprised this hasn't really been addressed yet. It seems like the only real suggestion is to disable it as it causes more problems than it's worth.

Modified by AZBigDog

more options

I have one email newsletter that has a ridiculously long return-to setting in the header and it is always flagged as potential scam because it's that different from the sender's address. I have complained to them because Thunderbird doesn't seem to be interested in allowing specific senders to not be flagged. C'est la guerre.

more options

That is what it appears to be happening. I'm not really complaining as it is a free program. It just would be nice if this feature could be improved. It's just like with an an anti-virus scanner that gives too many false positives. At some point it just gets disabled.

more options

I only get the false positive on a newsletter and I've learned to almost ignore it as it has no other ill-effects. I did send a note to the newsletter describing what it is doing that makes it appear to be a scam in the hope that they can be a bit more sensible in their reply-to value.

more options

I am getting false positive 'this message may be a scam' for my Houston city council woman and email newletters from stewart-macdonald online. Both are legitimate websites and I have repeatedly told thunderbird to ignore the warning for emails from these sites. Why doesn't that train the scam detection to no longer flag them? I see in the bugzilla report link this issue goes back "FIFTEEN YEARS" and was closed 6 months ago apperently w/o any fix being acted upon. This is kinda silly. I don't want to turn off scam detection b/c it's an important feature but come on 15 yrs to add a future to train the scam detection? We can train for spam, and antivirus why not for scams?

more options

I don't remember seeing a way to train the scam detection that it is not scam. I wish they would add that into the app as it has been an ongoing issue for many years.

more options

You have two choices when it comes to Thunderbird scam detection. On or off. Mozilla dumped Thunderbird several years back and the mostly volunteer Thunderbird Council that took over has been just keeping up with bug and security fixes. I would not hold my breath to see any development on the scam detection anytime soon.

more options

I have that problem with a newsletter that has an insanely long reply-to address consisting of a string of numbers and letters. After a while, I created a contact with that address and I haven't gotten the notice on that account since.

more options

Truman said

You have two choices when it comes to Thunderbird scam detection. On or off. Mozilla dumped Thunderbird several years back and the mostly volunteer Thunderbird Council that took over has been just keeping up with bug and security fixes. I would not hold my breath to see any development on the scam detection anytime soon.

I'm not really complaining as it is run by volunteers AND is free program. Sure it would be nice if this long time issue was addressed but if not, oh well.

more options

Don said

I have one email newsletter that has a ridiculously long return-to setting in the header and it is always flagged as potential scam because it's that different from the sender's address. I have complained to them because Thunderbird doesn't seem to be interested in allowing specific senders to not be flagged. C'est la guerre.

do you are really surprised? this is only censorship, there are not other explanations