E-mail - Spam filters on cPanel

What is SPAM?

E-mail spam, also known as junk e-mail, is where unsolicited messages are sent by e-mail in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it. Most spam is commercial advertising, often for dubious products, get-rich-quick schemes, or quasi-legal services.

What are SPAM filters?

A spam filter is a program that is used to detect unsolicited and unwanted e-mail and prevent those messages from getting to a user's inbox. Because a large amount of global e-mail messages are spam, effective spam filters are critical to maintaining clean and spam-free inboxes.

How does a SPAM filter work?

In general, the features that the filter looks for can be divided into three broad categories:

1. Where the message came from - Some ISPs spend a lot of effort to keep spammers off their network. Others advertise to attract spammers. In the middle are ISPs that say they don't allow spam, but don't do much to keep spammers off. Anti-spam organisations keep lists (called "RBL"s) of networks that are commonly used by spammers. If you find that regular mail being sent from your ISP is getting a high score, contact your ISP and complain that your mail is getting blocked because they are on many RBLs. Ask them to put more effort into keeping spammers off of their system or shop around for another ISP.
2. What software sent the message - Most legit mail comes from Outlook Hotmail, and other mailers that people use. These mailers are designed to make sure that that messages actually get to their addressees, and that the sender is warned of any problems. Spam, however, is distributed by software that is designed to send out millions of messages as quickly as possible. The spammer specifically does *not* want to know about any delivery problems; in fact, the spammer does not want the messages to be easily traced back to their source.
3. What the message looks like - Spam filters also looks at the subject and body of the message for the same sort of things that a person notices when a message "looks like spam".

When QuickEasy mail is not being delivered, or is being delivered to SPAM folders.

If QuickEasy e-mail is not delivered to the recipient, or is delivered to spam folders, the problem could be a spam or filter setting with the ISP.

How to change SPAM filters for your e-mail on cPanel in order to manage e-mail delivery.

1. Navigate to your ISP.
2. Login to cPanel
3. In the E-mail section, identify which e-mail filter / setting you wish to select. Depending on your ISP and the software they use, you could look at the following settings:

1. Authentication

Authentication helps prevent spam and attempts to equip email messages with verifiable information so that the nature of the incoming / outgoing mail can be detected automatically.

Follow the instructions on the page to disable these settings.

2. Global E-mail Filters

This determines how your server filters all of the e-mail that you receive. Edit or remove whatever filters might be hindering QuickEasy mail from being received.

3. BoxTrapper

This may be called something else in your ISP cPanel. It is a setting to trap and not deliver e-mails that are deemed to be spam, so you don't even receive them in your spam folder. This protects your inbox from spam. All email senders who are not on your Whitelist will need to reply to a verification e-mail before you can receive their mail. To lift this from your e-mail settings, disable whatever accounts might be blocked.

4. E-mail Filters

This allows you to create and manage e-mail filters for an email address that you specify. This can be useful if you want to avoid spam, redirect mail, or pipe messages to a program. Edit or remove e-mail filters that are potentially blocking QuickEasy mail.

5. Apache SpamAssassin

Apache SpamAssassin is an e-mail utility that examines incoming e-mail and tests for spam characteristics. It uses Bayesian spam filtering and network tests to screen incoming e-mail. This results in an overall score that Apache SpamAssassin uses to determine whether it should discard a message.

For more on how to disable Apache SpamAssassin, copy and paste this link into your browser: https://documentation.cpanel.net/display/ALD/Apache+SpamAssassin