Why are specific relay emails being sent to spam despite having a filter, and only being removed when the filter is run manualy?

Hi Louie,

Thanks for the screenshot. Your filter is set to run when new mail arrives, but it is currently set to “Filter after Spam Classification.” That may explain the behaviour you're seeing: Thunderbird can classify the message as spam and move it to the Spam folder before your filter gets a chance to act on it. Automatic message filters are applied to new mail in the Inbox, not to messages that have already been moved to another folder.

I'd try changing the dropdown next to “Getting New Mail” to “Filter before Spam Classification.” Your existing “Set Spam Status to Not Spam” action should then also make sense, since the filter will catch the message before Thunderbird's spam classification.

Your filter rules themselves look reasonable, although I would probably remove the Subject condition if the AP messages don't actually have “apnews.com” in their subject. The From condition should be enough if that domain is reliably present in the sender address.

If it still happens after changing it to “before Spam Classification,” the Filter Log would be the next thing I'd check to see whether Thunderbird is actually running the filter when the message arrives.

Hi Max,

Thanks for the response! I tried the changes you suggested, but am still having the same issue with my news emails. When I checked my spam folder the most recent news email was still there unsuccessfully filtered. I ran the filter manually after clearing the filter log, and attached the results here.

The news label is the biggest example I have, but in general I've noticed that emails from any of my relay addresses, even when set in the relay to forward all messages, will almost always end up directly in my spam folder whether there are filter rules in place for them or not. I've been curious if it's a situation of Thunderbird needing to be running for the filters to apply, but whenever I boot up and log on in the mornings I still have to manually run my filters to get messages out of the spam and tagged correctly in my main inbox.

Over the weekend I still had all of my incoming news which was forwarded through my relay mail address sent directly to the spam folder which I've attached an image of. Even with the updated message filter provided by Max I still have to manually run my news filter to get the relevant emails out of the spam folder, properly tagged, and moved into my main inbox.

I checked the filter log after seeing so many news emails in my spam, and it was completely blank. At this point I feel like it's an issue of the filters either not automatically running, or some weird interaction between the filters and mail forwarded from the relay, but then again this is just an amateur hunch.

Over the weekend I still had all of my incoming news which was forwarded through my relay mail address sent directly to the spam folder

To avoid false positives you need to train the adaptive spam filter by marking them as 'Not Spam'. https://support.mozilla.org/kb/thunderbird-and-junk-spam-messages

Ever since this problem has started I've marked at least 50 news emails as not spam, and thats AFTER resetting the training data because I heard that may be a potential solution. Also while my news filter is the most frequent example, I still have other emails forwarded through my other relay addresses that also default to my spam folder. All in all is this really the only way to get Thunderbird to properly apply it's filters and tags? It seems like so much commitment and extra effort on my part I almost dont want to believe it, especially since after 50+ emails of one category alone there doesn't seem to be any signs of improvement. I hate to think about all my other labels and filters I'll also have to babysit if this is the case.

Is there any reason why the spam filter is so aggressive to this degree? Is it by design? I have the AP news address even saved to my address book and they're still defaulting to spam, that cant be everything working as intended can it? If anything I'd expect Thunderbird by design to play nice with my relay emails, is the spam filter really meant to indiscriminately spam anything coming from them, and if so why is there an option in relay to have them forwarded in the first place? If clocking in every few hours to correct my spam folder is the only way forward, then I guess I'll do it until I become too annoyed to continue, but I'm hoping there's another way.

Another update:

I tested another email inbox today with the same news filters applied for the same AP emails. This was a Gmail account, and it had no issues. I really do think this is a matter of either Thunderbird not running filters on emails received from relay addresses, or Thunderbird filters just blatantly not running before OR after spam classification. This is the only explanation I can think of due to my spam folder being full of news emails, and the filter log being completely empty as if no emails were received whatsoever.

I've continued marking things in my spam folder as "Not spam", and am in the 60s by my current count with my AP emails still showing no signs of improvement. I do not think this is a matter of the spam filter not being trained, but if it is, does anyone have a success story or two with this process eventually working?

Would anyone be able to confirm if the filter log should be blank when emails meeting the criteria end up in my spam folder? I had 6 AP emails in my spam folder this morning with no entries in the filter log for them. If my label filter is set to "apply before spam classification" like Max suggested wouldn't that mean that if it were working properly the filter rules would apply to the message before Thunderbird decides that it's spam? I'm asking because if the filter log being blank means that it's not running when it should, then I don't think I understand how manually marking the emails as "not spam" (I'm still doing this) will change anything.

If the filter rules are being run successfully after enough emails are marked, and no longer defaulting to the spam folder with a blank filter log, then I think that points at the problem being somewhere between incoming mail and spam/filter application. I know I'm a novice, but I really think something is broken/wrong here, and I'm hoping to get more input, dialogue, help, troubleshooting, and whatever else to either help me understand more clearly, or come up with a solution. I'm willing to cooperate however necessary, and I want to help, but other than sharing my problem, troubleshooting experience, and potential ideas, I don't know how else to do this.

I've leaned in hard to the training the spam filter "solution", and have put all my news email subscriptions in full swing. My spam folder gets a hit on average every hour, and I'm regularly "training" it (if you can call it that). I have crossed into the triple digits (103 specifically) of marking my AP news emails manually as "not spam", and it shows no signs of improving anything. 100+ manual spam trainings and not so much as a single email sent to the inbox instead of the spam folder. I'm hanging in there, I'm trying to be communicative and helpful, and I'm staying consistent with any updates or new observances. Is any of this enough for someone to step in and help me? I've responded to the two replies as promptly as I was able to, and included direct information related to both of their solutions. I promise if anyone wants to help or support me I promise I'm committed to helping solve this; I unfortunately just need some help from the community or development team...