Question re Spam

[madra]

Just want to clear up a couple of things regarding how AquaMail handles spam:

I use AquaMail on Android [having recently switched from Gmail], OSX Mail on desktop/laptop and, very occasionally, if I want to change a setting "at source", I login to my Gmail accounts via the webmail interface.

In the past, when using Gmail on Android, I was seeing pretty consistent behaviour across all my devices; emails I marked as spam on Android or Gmail's web interface were likewise being marked as spam on OSX Mail and I was seeing them less often. The 'vice versa' was also true; email I marked as spam in OSX mail was likewise being marked as spam in Android/Webmail.

Since I switched to using AquaMail, however, this behaviour has changed.

When I check my emails on OSX, I'm seeing emails in my OSX Mail 'Junk' folder which, although they are in that folder, are not coloured brown [OSX Mail's way of flagging them as spam]. These are emails I have "moved to spam" in AquaMail.  The problem is that, when I receive further emails from these senders on OSX, they are arriving in my inbox.

My speculation is that Gmail on Android was somehow tagging these emails as spam, as well as moving them to the spam folder, whereas AquaMail is just moving them to the spam folder.  Therefore, when another client [in this case OSX Mail] sees these emails, it doesn't associate them with being spam, even though they are in the spam folder, because they are lacking some other indicator of 'spamminess'.

This would seem to be borne out by the fact that, in OSX Mail's preferences, there is an option in the spam handling section to "trust junk mail headers"



So, if my idle speculation is correct, is there a reason why AquaMail isn't causing these "junk mail headers" to be added?

I'm assuming an email client can't do this by itself and has to request that "junk mail headers" are added by the mail server [in this case Gmail]. But, given that [previously] mail I marked as spam in OSX Mail would also be classed as such in Android's Gmail app, I'm also assuming that it's possible for 3rd party apps to ask the server to add these headers.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Re: My speculation is that Gmail on Android was somehow tagging these emails as spam, as well as moving them to the spam folder, whereas AquaMail is just moving them to the spam folder.

Yes, possible.

IMAP does not have a standard way to flag messages as Spam.

Moving to the server side Spam folder is all we can do (the Spam folder is *the one* that the server says is *the* spam folder, btw).

[StR]

When I check my emails on OSX, I'm seeing emails in my OSX Mail 'Junk' folder which, although they are in that folder, are not coloured brown [OSX Mail's way of flagging them as spam]. These are emails I have "moved to spam" in AquaMail.  The problem is that, when I receive further emails from these senders on OSX, they are arriving in my inbox.

My speculation is that Gmail on Android was somehow tagging these emails as spam, as well as moving them to the spam folder, whereas AquaMail is just moving them to the spam folder.  Therefore, when another client [in this case OSX Mail] sees these emails, it doesn't associate them with being spam, even though they are in the spam folder, because they are lacking some other indicator of 'spamminess'.

This would seem to be borne out by the fact that, in OSX Mail's preferences, there is an option in the spam handling section to "trust junk mail headers"

So, if my idle speculation is correct, is there a reason why AquaMail isn't causing these "junk mail headers" to be added?

I'm assuming an email client can't do this by itself and has to request that "junk mail headers" are added by the mail server [in this case Gmail]. But, given that [previously] mail I marked as spam in OSX Mail would also be classed as such in Android's Gmail app, I'm also assuming that it's possible for 3rd party apps to ask the server to add these headers.

Just in case, - a couple of thoughts that might be helpful to you to understand what is happening:
1. Check that your mapping of the Spam folder in Aquamail is correct, i.e. that it maps to what Gmail considers its spam folder. (You mail client (OSX) may have created yet a different "Spam" folder).
The best way to check is by going to Gmail's web interface, and verifying that the message you marked in Aquamail as spam is in the main "Spam" folder. (In those accounts where an additional "Spam" folder was generated from the mail client, that additional folder shows as [Imap]/Spam.)
Proper mapping would allow informing Gmail servers about these messages being spam (if they work that way -- see Kostya's comment).

2. Regarding your OSX Mail, - it looks like it has own spam filters (probably similar to what Thunderbird has). So, when you mark a message as spam, it remembers the sender's address, as well as probably some other indicators (and possiblysome heuristic methods). That allows it marking future messages from the same source as spam, and moving them to a spam folder.
But it probably does not do that based on the location of the messages (i.e. it probably doesn't analyze Junk/Spam folder).

As for the "junk mail headers", - I believe, that option refers to the headers (or inserted marks in the Subject header) that are added by the spam filters on the server, such as
X-Spam-Flag: YES
X-Spam-Flag: Spam YES
Subject: [SPAM] Get 1 million dollars in one day

As Kostya wrote, mail clients usually do not add any indicators of the spam to the messages. (At least I am not aware of any mail client that does that.)

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Re: As Kostya wrote

IMAP does not have a standard per-message flag for spam.

It does have flags for "replied", "read", "starred" (and "draft" which we don't use). It has an optional and "de facto standard" flag for "forwarded".

But no standard flag for spam. Some servers call it "spam", some call it "junk", there are others too, and some don't have any.

[madra]

Thanks for the replies.

I think you may be onto something, as OSX mail does create a separate 'Junk' folder on the server, whereas Gmail calls theirs 'Spam'.