no spam folder : missing emails

Well since the leak I've been getting about 10 spam a day (up from none, ever), but once the filtering kicked in I got nowt - so I logged into webmail to scan the spam for false positives, only to find I have no spam folder. Where did these emails go? /dev/null ?

The only folders available in webmail are: Inbox, Drafts, Sent, & Trash

So late yesterday afternoon I had to login and change the settings to mark as "[-SPAM-]" only and not to move them into my spam folder. If I'm not the only one, and others are missing their spam folders, are they losing email too?

Have you checked that the webmail client is subscribed to the SPAM folder?

Try clicking on 'Folders' at the top of the page and check that you have subscribed to INBOX.SPAM.

If you cannot access the Spam folder then try the following:

- Login to your Webmail inbox
- Click the 'folders' link at the top of the page
- On the right-hand side near the bottom there will be a folder called INBOX.Spam
- Select it and click the Subscribe button
- Click [Check mail] on the left-hand menu pane
- Your Spam folder will appear at the end of the folders list, underneath Trash

This should sort it out for you.

Just had to follow this process to access my spam folder, found some 4000+ msgs in there to work through!

...and, more worringly, around 300 msgs in my inbox that I have not seen before. Can anyone suggest why my mail client may not have downloaded these?

OIMO

Edited by OIMO (Tue 29-May-07 07:27:34)

Am I reading this right - [SPAM] marked mail is now being put in a separate IMAP folder that isn't downloaded by clients using POP3??

When did that start?

23rd May 2007.

http://usertools.plus.net/status/archive/1179853763.htm

[edit to correct date & SS link]

Edited by deleted (Tue 29-May-07 09:58:30)

Hmm - that says:

In reply to:

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We will also be adding extra functionality which will allow customers the option to leave copies of spam messages on the server instead of downloading them to their machines.

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Which implies I have a choice - but it seems to have been turned on by default - how do I turn it off?

In reply to:

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An email has been sent to all customers containing further information.

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No to me it wasn't

The 'option' would have appeared if or when you logged into the PlusNet portal at any point after about the 18th or 19th of May. The option was to enable the new spam protection features or not. I can't seem to find any option to toggle the features on or off now though, although I expect they are somewhere. Unfortunately it wasn't made clear to users exactly what would be happening, customers were just faced with loads of spam, them given an option that looked like it would reduce it. There are FAQ's and other documentation around (again not easy to find) but some of the measures have been questioned.

The new functionality was rolled out on the 23rd as peter says and I believe there are future plans to extend the levels at which spam which PlusNet's systems think are spam to be automatically deleted. Having to login and mess about with IMAP folders is not an ideal solution, this was brought up, but the option to not enable the features seemed to be enough for PlusNet to ignore the concerns. It's expected that there will be one or six posts regarding confusion of mailboxes, spam folders and missing mail over the coming weeks and months. Of course these posts will only be from those who notice, which I'd imagine will be a small percentage of people. Many will just let PlusNet's systems auto-delete messages after they've been sitting in a folder they never check for 30 days.

Edited by h0tblack (Tue 29-May-07 10:18:06)

email settings -> manage my mail -> spam tab allows you to enable/disable the feature. It is on & deliver to IMAP spam folder by default I believe.

I received the email explaining the change to my postmaster and main cntact email addresses on 18/05/2007 entitled 'Email Security Improvements'

In reply to:

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Dear <user name>,

Due to the recent issues with Webmail security and the subsequent increase in unwanted spam emails to customers, we will soon be making improved spam tools available free of charge to all of our customers.

Our Spam Protection filters currently work by detecting any unwanted spam email sent to your email address and adding a tag to the subject line, allowing you to quickly identify it as spam and delete or filter it accordingly.

From Thursday 24th May we will be making our Spam Protection service available to all customers, so even those who haven't been able to take advantage of the service up until now will be able to benefit from reduced levels of unsolicited and nuisance email.

For those already using our Spam Protection filter, next week will also see a number of improvements made in the way in which we handle the email that we identify as spam.

As of next Thursday, email identified as [-SPAM-] will no longer be delivered to your Inbox. Instead it will be delivered to a dedicated spam folder that will be available for you to check online. In the unlikely event that an email gets incorrectly identified as spam, you will be able to choose to have the message moved from the spam folder and downloaded to your machine. Emails left in the spam folder will be automatically deleted after 30 days. For advanced users, there will also be an option to download spam to a separate IMAP mailbox.

From next week all of your mail will be filtered for spam and any identified emails moved to your online spam folder. This will help cut down the volumes of any spam emails arriving in your inbox.

Whilst it is not recommended, we do recognise that some customers may not want to take advantage of these improvements, or may prefer to turn spam filtering off altogether. For this reason we are providing you with the opportunity to advise us how you would like our mail servers to manage any spam email sent to your addresses. If you haven't done so already, you can choose your preferred method of delivery at the following address. Alternatively you can browse to our website and follow the links to the Member Centre:

http://portal.plus.net/

Don't worry if you're unsure at the moment how you want your spam to be managed. You can always change your preference at a later date should you need to, and if you take no action as a result of this email, the only result is that you will see less spam in your mailbox!

You can find more suggestions on how to reduce levels of spam to your email account by visiting our online help pages:

http://www.plus.net/support/security/spam/spam_protection_guide.shtml

Please note that Spam Protection is a feature of our POP3/IMAP email service. If you are running your own (SMTP) mail server, you will not benefit from its protection.

Kind Regards,

Carol Axe
Head of Customer Service
PlusNet

http://www.plus.net

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Edited by deleted (Tue 29-May-07 10:21:35)

Thanks for the directions to the enable/disable option. I guess it's in the obvious place
The Spam Protection Guide could do with being updated a bit to mention things like mail being auto-delted and instructions for those with missing spam mailboxes IMHO.

In reply to:

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email settings -> manage my mail -> spam tab allows you to enable/disable the feature. It is on & deliver to IMAP spam folder by default I believe.

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Excellent. Thanks.

In reply to:

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I received the email explaining the change to my postmaster and main cntact email addresses on 18/05/2007 entitled 'Email Security Improvements'

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I didn't and there's no note on my account that would suggest that PlusNet even tried to send one. The last note from them was on the 16th which was the announcement that my email address had been nicked.

There's no note on my account about either of the recent mails sent out ("Email security improvements" or "Important information about your email address") but I did receive them at my on-file 'contact' address. I didn't receive them in my PlusNet mailboxes though, as my postmaster/redirects weren't working at the time for some reason. Perhaps these were mailed out separately from the normal automated systems so weren't logged against people's accounts?

Not all of the recent emails appear as a ticket on your account.

I don't have a ticket for the 'Email Security Improvement' either so it must have been sent via a different route. I do have a ticket for 'Important information about your email address' on 16th May though. I also know all my email addresses were working OK as far as I can tell during that time.

--- On the right-hand side near the bottom there will be a folder called INBOX.Spam

Nope - none. Nada.

It says:

Unsubscribe/Subscribe
No folders were found to unsubscribe from! No folders were found to subscribe to!

What happened to the emails that were supposedly moved?

Each named mailbox under the mailboxes tab on the manage my email section of the portal will have its own SPAM folder. If you use one of the named mailboxes, are you logging into webmail with that mailbox (username+mailboxname) or your default one?

If you have turned off the catch-all or blackholed it then you wan't get spam in your default mailbox so no SPAM IMAP folder will be created.

I am logging into webmail with just my PN username+password. I haven't created any additional mailbox names, nor have I turned off or blackholed my catch-all. I have no aliases, no redirects, and no mailing lists either.

Two possibilities:

1. You haven't got spam checking turned on so all spams are arriving in your inbox without being tagged.

2. Checking is on but you haven't received any tagged spams yet. The folder is created when the first one arrives.

Are you receiving any mail in the mailbox? I had some weird problems where two addresses were blackholed (all mail sent to /dev/null) even though there was no sign of this or the associated redirects in the web interface.