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Thunderbird keeps marking e-mail as Junk

  • 21 replies
  • 15 have this problem
  • 19 views
  • Last reply by bigfootnlc

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I have TB 45.1.1 (on Arch Linux) with a Yahoo! IMAP e-mail account.

Spam is automatically marked as Junk and moved to the Junk folder.

Sometimes I have the following problems:

1. Messages are automatically marked as Junk although it's sender is in my Thunderbird address book.

2. When I remove the message from the Junk folder, marking it as "No Junk", it appears in the Inbox folder. (That's right.)

3. After a few seconds, the message is automaically marked as Junk again (but stays in the Inbox).

4. Thunderbird keeps marking the message as Junk.

I noticed that Thunderbird does not keep marking the message as Junk when in offline mode. It looks like the Junk status online at Yahoo! is not updated. However, when I look up online at yahoo.com, there is no sign of a positive Junk status. I still have the option to mark the message as Junk.

Any ideas?

I have TB 45.1.1 (on Arch Linux) with a Yahoo! IMAP e-mail account. Spam is automatically marked as Junk and moved to the Junk folder. Sometimes I have the following problems: 1. Messages are automatically marked as Junk although it's sender is in my Thunderbird address book. 2. When I remove the message from the Junk folder, marking it as "No Junk", it appears in the Inbox folder. (That's right.) 3. After a few seconds, the message is automaically marked as Junk again (but stays in the Inbox). 4. Thunderbird keeps marking the message as Junk. I noticed that Thunderbird does not keep marking the message as Junk when in offline mode. It looks like the Junk status online at Yahoo! is not updated. However, when I look up online at yahoo.com, there is no sign of a positive Junk status. I still have the option to mark the message as Junk. Any ideas?

Modified by nurfz

All Replies (20)

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Thunderbird does not keep marking the message as junk. Yahoo do, and moving it back to the bulk mail folder. I have not been able to locate a way to prevent it. It is like their junk filter runs continuously on all folders and restates it's preferences. and there is no opt out for the thing on yahoo either.

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Thank you for the answer! Ok, that's sad.

In my case the false Junk e-mails stay in the Inbox -- in both, yahoo.com and Thunderbird.

Do you know if the Junk status is part of the IMAP protocol or is it a header of the MIME e-mail message. In the message source, there is one line containing "junk":

X-UI-Out-Filterresults: notjunk:1;V01:K0:94Tshz4+dB0=:5WM72+aw...

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All X- email headers are not mail headers as such, just stuff added by anti virus programs, isp servers etc. the actual process of sending and receiving mail should not be changed by the presence or absence of an X- header. According to this link this header is inserted by United Internet http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26894406/decode-x-ui-filterresults-mail-header

Yahoo use the header X-YahooFilteredBulk: followed by an IP address for most of their junk mail. The source IP being the deciding factor in the item being junk

They also add X-YMailISG: or X-YMailOSG: and a load of information that is meaning less to anything but spamguard.

I am not aware of any Junk status in IMAP. But you are welcome to check for yourself https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3501

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Thank you, Matt.

Ok, this X- header I mentioned comes from the sender (GMX which is part United Internet). So that's not the problem.

As far as I see, IMAP has no status for "junk"/"spam"/"bulk" in the RFC. The closest think are flags, but there is no "junk" flag (https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3501#section-2.3.2).

TB might mark the e-mail as Junk due to the X-YahooFilteredBulk or X-YMailISG headers (which are present in my case).

I'm not quiet sure if this is wanted behaviour. TB has it's own spam filter and should not care about any ISP's spam filter. Because an ISP first moves an spam e-mail to the Junk folder anyway.

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Thunderbird filter does not use any headers, unless the options in the account setting to "trust headers "for XXXX are set.

What you could do is try a filter in Thunderbird that marks any junk mail that is in the inbox folder as not junk before classification. That would set things to rights.

Have you looked at your anti virus? does it had a spam tool built in. I have seen those cause all sorts of havoc in the background.

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I could not find the "trust headers" setting, neither the Account Junk setting nor in the config editor.

The work around does not quite work for me. As filter condition, there is no "Junk status". I can execute the filter manually for all messages in Inbox (which has the same effect then clicking "No Junk"). But it seems it is executed automatically only for new messages (before Junk classification).

I currently don't have any anti-virus on my system.

Thanks a lot for your help!

Maybe I will look into TB's code later, because I still don't understand why the message appears marked as Junk. It looks like TB is using the junk classification from Yahoo. Or it is a bug and TB ignores my "No Junk" classification...

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I was looking at something else, and noticed my junk setting no longer has my address books set as a white list. Are your still set?

The trust header is in the image, as are the address books that are used as white-lists.

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I've seen this behaviour with other providers. If you move the affected messages out of the account to somewhere neutral such as Local Folders, they stop jumping around. I take this as evidence of the server being responsible, as Matt has suggested. Putting them into a different account takes them out of reach of the misbehaving server.

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Zenos said

I take this as evidence of the server being responsible, as Matt has suggested.

Thank you for the tip. The server sets the Junk status, but still, TB displays the Junk status. This means that TB incorporates eiter e-mail headers or IMAP data to display the message as Junk. Right?

@Matt Oh, you mean the external spam filter. I do not use any external filter currently. And I whitelisted my address books (i.e. the Junk e-mail is actually whitelisted).

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Just how is Thunderbird marking these mails as Junk? The only indication Thunderbird uses is the flame icon.

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Hey Matt, I checked the source code of Thunderbird (45.1.1) today. You're right, Thunderbird does not look at the headers to decide on Junk. There are no matches at all for any of the suspect headers in the source.

I searched for these headers:

- X-UI-Out-Filterresults - X-Provags-ID - X-YahooFilteredBulk - Received-SPF - X-YMailISG - X-Provags-ID

I also omitted the "X-" in the search. So I guess there is something in the IMAP protocol.

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Is the flame icon on this mail? presence in a folder with junk does not designate Thunderbird's opinion, the flame icon does. So you can have flame marked junk in the inbox and non flamed mail in the junk folder without Thunderbird caring.

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What puzzles me, Matt, is the amount of stuff correctly labelled as Not Junk (no flame, and usually marked explicitly as Not Junk, with its green dot - I use Junquilla which enhances the labelling) which finds its way into the Junk folder.

Some if it, but not all, is due to an outlook.com/Exchange based account. I can move it back to Inbox and yet it silently moves back into Junk, so I surmise the server is doing it. If I move the errant message out of the outlook/exchange account (say into Local Folders and out of reach of the outlook/exchange server) then it behaves and stays put.

Modified by Zenos

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I assume your on some corporate exchange setup, most these days offer OWA as it saves on licensing. Try the setting in OWA and see if you can turn the server side off. https://kb.intermedia.net/article/1282##owa2010

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Matt said

Is the flame icon on this mail?

Yes, e-mails in my Inbox have the flame icon and I cannot "unflame" it effectively.

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Resetting the junk fllter training would probably help. Menu: Tools > Options > Security > Reset Training Data

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Hi user1111, I tried, it did not help.

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I also have this problem - e-mails from one sender (they're Twitch.tv streaming notifications - address is in my contacts) get flagged by Yahoo, and Thunderbird keeps abiding by that and flagging and re-flagging the messages, no matter what I do.

Trying to teach Thunderbird doesn't work - after marking similar messages (same sender; contents and title vary only little) hundreds of times as "not spam", they're always re-flagged in Inbox whenever Thunderbird checks for new mail.

I receive so few actual junk e-mails (0 - 5 per year for my 3 e-mail accounts), that I've even tried disabling junk mail handling completely in Thunderbird, but even if I disable it all (in global settings, per-account, and local files), Thunderbird still obeys Yahoo's erroneous detection and marks messages as junk.

I've learned to hate those flame icons - they're really annoying.

(The only somewhat saving grace is that mail marked as junk needn't be moved automatically to the junk mail folder - at least I get to see the messages and get notification about them.)

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Greetings:

Back to the original user's issue, there IS a workaround to the Yahoo eMail junk filters - create a filter that allows anything and everything to pass through.

https://c-command.com/spamsieve/help/turning-off-the-yahoo-m


Neil

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bigfootnlc said

Greetings: Back to the original user's issue, there IS a workaround to the Yahoo eMail junk filters - create a filter that allows anything and everything to pass through. https://c-command.com/spamsieve/help/turning-off-the-yahoo-m Neil

I tried that with another user. it worked when the mail arrived, until the first synchronization and then moved it back to the bulk mail.

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