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I have exactly the opposite problem: tons of legitimate email is getting flagged as Spam by GMail. It's now happening regularly with emails from people in my c

I have exactly the opposite problem: tons of legitimate email is getting flagged as Spam by GMail. It's now happening regularly with emails from people in my contacts with whom I regularly exchange messages. Mind-boggling. I know spam filtering is a hard problem, but these are just obvious misses.

thrower123 5y ago
I don't understand how to get Gmail to stop marking emails from my contacts as spam. Funny enough, the mails it penalizes worst are GMail addresses for small businesses, like my vet or the pizza shop.
skinkestek 5y ago
If this is company mail you might have a colleague who uses the spam button instead of delete. I once caught my boss doing this (he was not a native English speaker, but absolutely used to communicating in English so it shocked me.)
- gtirloni 5y ago
  Hmm so this is indeed a thing. I operate some email servers and often get spam notifications from, say, Hotmail, and the emails are always legitimate. It's like some people don't bother unsubscribing from lists, they just start reporting it as spam hoping it will go away.
  - d0gsg0w00f 5y ago
    I used to be naive and actually unsubscribe from things but it stopped working about 10 years ago so I haven't bothered since.
    - Tagbert 5y ago
      If the organization is legitimate, I find it usually works just fine. I usually only get such emails from organizations that I have recently started interacting with and that assume I want their newsletter. A simple unsubscribe fixes that. If I tagged it as spam, it would start to erode the ability of people who want this stuff to get it past the automated filters.
  - LudwigNagasena 5y ago
    If a button is hard to find or it doesn't directly unsubcribe me, I just report the email as spam.
  - WastingMyTime89 5y ago
    > It's like some people don't bother unsubscribing from lists, they just start reporting it as spam hoping it will go away. I do that all the time. I consider every list I didn't explicitly and intentionally subscribe to as spam and treat them accordingly. I wish I wouldn't have to do that but I find subscribing someone to a list when they thought they were just buying or creating an account for a product so unnerving and disrespectful that I don't feel bad about it.
    - gtirloni 5y ago
      These are discussion lists that people intentionally subscribed to (which require double confirmation). I'm not that dense.
      - Terretta 5y ago
        I get hundreds of different discussion list mails I have not signed up to.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
thisjustinm 5y ago
This ^ see my comment about our experience fighting this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28636281 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28636281
rconti 5y ago
GMail's spam filter no longer seems to have any intelligence. It's just a slider. Mark the obvious "Car insurance- 15324" subject message spam, and you know for a fact that immediately a bunch of legitimate mail will start getting flagged as spam. Mark that stuff as "not spam" and now you're back to getting obvious spam in your inbox.
moosedev 5y ago
Same. I'd gotten out of the habit of checking my Spam folder, having trusted Gmail to get it "correct enough" for years. But I looked recently and was amazed/horrified how much legitimate email was in there, including a friend's birthday event invitation that I would otherwise have missed. 20% of what is in my "Spam" folder today is what I'd call "spam" in the classical 90s/2000s-internet sense. Obvious trash/scam stuff, usually sex-related. Most of the rest of my "Spam" looks like what Gmail usually just labels Promotions. It's mail from legitimate organizations that I did indeed give my email address to and have a reasonable expectation of getting semi-regular email from, even if it's just trying to sell me more stuff. The Promotions auto-labeling works (worked) just fine for managing that stuff. I figured enough users are clicking the "Spam" button on enough "legit promotional" email from real organizations that they did agree to receive email from, that Gmail just started classifying it all as spam, and now doesn't/can't distinguish between "classic" spam and "annoying emails I can't be bothered to unsubscribe from". Sort of a tragedy of the commons of crowd-sourced spam filtering. But maybe there's a better explanation.
- danielheath 5y ago
  I carefully look for “subscribe to news” checkboxes and always untick them; if you send me campaign emails without me explicitly opting in you are getting a spam flag, whether or not I gave you an address for transactional mail.
  - moosedev 5y ago
    Not sure if you meant political campaign emails specifically or marketing campaign emails in general. The former are some of the absolute worst offenders in that regard, for sure. I try to use unsubscribe links when 1) they exist and 2) the email is from a legit organization that I reasonably believe is actually going to unsubscribe me from something (if not from every place they've copied my address to by now), but I can see the argument for just flagging as spam in the case where an organization oversteps previously agreed bounds. Especially with the political campaign emails, the unsubscribe game can feel like futile whack-a-mole. For ordinary commercial campaigns, I'd worry that flagging as spam would cause legit transactional mail (i.e. mail that belongs in the Updates auto-label) from the same organization to get flagged as well, but based on the state of my Spam folder, that's already happening anyway...
pbhjpbhj 5y ago
I've never understood why Gmail and Hotmail/Live/Outlook don't take a user's own indications as gospel. If I whitelist an email address I want those messages, I don't care if [you think, perhaps erroneously] they are spam. Possibly the worst is not allowing replys. I mean if a customer sends me a message, and you block the reply as spam how is that serving that customer? Sure mark it, remove viruses, obfuscate links, but let me reply to someone!
skellera 5y ago
I’m getting the worst of both. Important emails in spam and tons of spam emails in main inbox. I feel like it used to be near perfect. Something must’ve broken the models.
mattjaynes 5y ago
Yes. It's so bad that I find Google's own messages like Google Alerts ending up in my Spam folder. You'd think they'd whitelist their own emails.
superasn 5y ago
Yes it's unbelievable that gmail would send an email to spam when it's from a person with whom i have had prior correspondence with. Clearly shows they give more weight to things like scanning, IP reputation, etc vs common sense.
xtat 5y ago
Came to write this - same here
samstave 5y ago
Now I am wondering if Google hasa disgruntled employee/rogue-agent in its midst's!
lytefm 5y ago
Yes, GMail is absolutely terrible on that regard. I've been missing out on project mails from an UN organisation I have been working and exchanging emails with because of their aggressive and useless filters. For me privately, switching to a better provider solved that. But having >25% GMail customers and always landing in Spam is horrible. Pretty much any other provider likes our mail server, but GMail always says spam. Then you're going double opt-ins but customers still mark mails as spam because unsubscribing is too hard. Thanks for nothing. There is actually an industry in gaming GMails spam filter to somehow get into the inbox: some offer automated replies and unmarking spam, some manually run hundreds of mailboxes and don't do anything else all day than unmarking mails as spam.
ambivalents 5y ago
me too, and even more mind-boggling is important emails send right to "Trash." I have caught actually important, personal emails that were sent directly to my Trash bin. It's infuriating.

thrower123 5y ago

I don't understand how to get Gmail to stop marking emails from my contacts as spam. Funny enough, the mails it penalizes worst are GMail addresses for small businesses, like my vet or the pizza shop.

skinkestek 5y ago

If this is company mail you might have a colleague who uses the spam button instead of delete. I once caught my boss doing this (he was not a native English speaker, but absolutely used to communicating in English so it shocked me.)

gtirloni 5y ago
Hmm so this is indeed a thing. I operate some email servers and often get spam notifications from, say, Hotmail, and the emails are always legitimate. It's like some people don't bother unsubscribing from lists, they just start reporting it as spam hoping it will go away.
- d0gsg0w00f 5y ago
  I used to be naive and actually unsubscribe from things but it stopped working about 10 years ago so I haven't bothered since.
  - Tagbert 5y ago
    If the organization is legitimate, I find it usually works just fine. I usually only get such emails from organizations that I have recently started interacting with and that assume I want their newsletter. A simple unsubscribe fixes that. If I tagged it as spam, it would start to erode the ability of people who want this stuff to get it past the automated filters.
- LudwigNagasena 5y ago
  If a button is hard to find or it doesn't directly unsubcribe me, I just report the email as spam.
- WastingMyTime89 5y ago
  > It's like some people don't bother unsubscribing from lists, they just start reporting it as spam hoping it will go away. I do that all the time. I consider every list I didn't explicitly and intentionally subscribe to as spam and treat them accordingly. I wish I wouldn't have to do that but I find subscribing someone to a list when they thought they were just buying or creating an account for a product so unnerving and disrespectful that I don't feel bad about it.
  - gtirloni 5y ago
    These are discussion lists that people intentionally subscribed to (which require double confirmation). I'm not that dense.
    - Terretta 5y ago
      I get hundreds of different discussion list mails I have not signed up to.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

thisjustinm 5y ago

This ^ see my comment about our experience fighting this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28636281 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28636281

rconti 5y ago

GMail's spam filter no longer seems to have any intelligence. It's just a slider. Mark the obvious "Car insurance- 15324" subject message spam, and you know for a fact that immediately a bunch of legitimate mail will start getting flagged as spam. Mark that stuff as "not spam" and now you're back to getting obvious spam in your inbox.

moosedev 5y ago

Same. I'd gotten out of the habit of checking my Spam folder, having trusted Gmail to get it "correct enough" for years. But I looked recently and was amazed/horrified how much legitimate email was in there, including a friend's birthday event invitation that I would otherwise have missed. 20% of what is in my "Spam" folder today is what I'd call "spam" in the classical 90s/2000s-internet sense. Obvious trash/scam stuff, usually sex-related. Most of the rest of my "Spam" looks like what Gmail usually just labels Promotions. It's mail from legitimate organizations that I did indeed give my email address to and have a reasonable expectation of getting semi-regular email from, even if it's just trying to sell me more stuff. The Promotions auto-labeling works (worked) just fine for managing that stuff. I figured enough users are clicking the "Spam" button on enough "legit promotional" email from real organizations that they did agree to receive email from, that Gmail just started classifying it all as spam, and now doesn't/can't distinguish between "classic" spam and "annoying emails I can't be bothered to unsubscribe from". Sort of a tragedy of the commons of crowd-sourced spam filtering. But maybe there's a better explanation.

danielheath 5y ago
I carefully look for “subscribe to news” checkboxes and always untick them; if you send me campaign emails without me explicitly opting in you are getting a spam flag, whether or not I gave you an address for transactional mail.
- moosedev 5y ago
  Not sure if you meant political campaign emails specifically or marketing campaign emails in general. The former are some of the absolute worst offenders in that regard, for sure. I try to use unsubscribe links when 1) they exist and 2) the email is from a legit organization that I reasonably believe is actually going to unsubscribe me from something (if not from every place they've copied my address to by now), but I can see the argument for just flagging as spam in the case where an organization oversteps previously agreed bounds. Especially with the political campaign emails, the unsubscribe game can feel like futile whack-a-mole. For ordinary commercial campaigns, I'd worry that flagging as spam would cause legit transactional mail (i.e. mail that belongs in the Updates auto-label) from the same organization to get flagged as well, but based on the state of my Spam folder, that's already happening anyway...

pbhjpbhj 5y ago

I've never understood why Gmail and Hotmail/Live/Outlook don't take a user's own indications as gospel. If I whitelist an email address I want those messages, I don't care if [you think, perhaps erroneously] they are spam. Possibly the worst is not allowing replys. I mean if a customer sends me a message, and you block the reply as spam how is that serving that customer? Sure mark it, remove viruses, obfuscate links, but let me reply to someone!

skellera 5y ago

I’m getting the worst of both. Important emails in spam and tons of spam emails in main inbox. I feel like it used to be near perfect. Something must’ve broken the models.

mattjaynes 5y ago

Yes. It's so bad that I find Google's own messages like Google Alerts ending up in my Spam folder. You'd think they'd whitelist their own emails.

superasn 5y ago

Yes it's unbelievable that gmail would send an email to spam when it's from a person with whom i have had prior correspondence with. Clearly shows they give more weight to things like scanning, IP reputation, etc vs common sense.

xtat 5y ago

Came to write this - same here

samstave 5y ago

Now I am wondering if Google hasa disgruntled employee/rogue-agent in its midst's!

lytefm 5y ago

Yes, GMail is absolutely terrible on that regard. I've been missing out on project mails from an UN organisation I have been working and exchanging emails with because of their aggressive and useless filters. For me privately, switching to a better provider solved that. But having >25% GMail customers and always landing in Spam is horrible. Pretty much any other provider likes our mail server, but GMail always says spam. Then you're going double opt-ins but customers still mark mails as spam because unsubscribing is too hard. Thanks for nothing. There is actually an industry in gaming GMails spam filter to somehow get into the inbox: some offer automated replies and unmarking spam, some manually run hundreds of mailboxes and don't do anything else all day than unmarking mails as spam.

ambivalents 5y ago

me too, and even more mind-boggling is important emails send right to "Trash." I have caught actually important, personal emails that were sent directly to my Trash bin. It's infuriating.