Join the Mozilla’s Test Days event from 9–15 Jan to test the new Firefox address bar on Firefox Beta 135 and get a chance to win Mozilla swag vouchers! 🎁

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.

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

How to stop Thunderbird from classifying my collegue's Airmail messages as scam

  • 4 replies
  • 4 have this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by Nils T

Thunderbird keeps classifying almost all mail from one of my colleagues as scam.

His sending address is in my address book.

I suspect it has to do with how his MUA (Apple Airmail) formats the emails.

I do not want to disable Scam detection in general.

Any ideas?

Using Thunderbird 52.3.0+build1-0ubuntu0.16.04.1 on Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS

Thunderbird keeps classifying almost all mail from one of my colleagues as scam. His sending address is in my address book. I suspect it has to do with how his MUA (Apple Airmail) formats the emails. I do not want to disable Scam detection in general. Any ideas? Using Thunderbird 52.3.0+build1-0ubuntu0.16.04.1 on Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS

Chosen solution

sure. The detection is very basic so all that triggers it is listed here https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/thunderbirds-scam-detection#w_thunderbirds-automatic-scam-filtering

To summarize

  • Links with numerical server names (http://127.0.0.1/).
  • Links where the text doesn't match the server name (for example, the text of the message might say "https://secure.example.com" but the link actually goes to "http://phishing.example.com" instead). Phishers do this to fool you into going to their site. Unfortunately some legitimate mailing lists also do this with redirectors for tracking purposes.
  • A remote image link that has different image source than the link points to (spoofing a legitimate web site, similar to the link spoofing described above).
Read this answer in context 👍 2

All Replies (4)

You have no choices beyond what you apparently are aware of. Modify the email or disable the scam detection are the choices. There are no hidden tweaks or settings is is really an incomplete feature that has languished for years.

Thank you Matt.

Is there any documentation of how my colleague could change the format of his mails that make it less likely to trigger Thunderbird's scam detection?

Chosen Solution

sure. The detection is very basic so all that triggers it is listed here https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/thunderbirds-scam-detection#w_thunderbirds-automatic-scam-filtering

To summarize

  • Links with numerical server names (http://127.0.0.1/).
  • Links where the text doesn't match the server name (for example, the text of the message might say "https://secure.example.com" but the link actually goes to "http://phishing.example.com" instead). Phishers do this to fool you into going to their site. Unfortunately some legitimate mailing lists also do this with redirectors for tracking purposes.
  • A remote image link that has different image source than the link points to (spoofing a legitimate web site, similar to the link spoofing described above).

Thank you Matt. Your hint helped me find the broken link "where the text doesn't match the server name" in the sender's HTML signature. Mystery solved, i notified my colleague!

Modified by Nils T