How to Disable and Deactivate Spam Filter Protection in Gmail or Google Mail
Gmail or Google Mail as known in UK and Germany comes with a very good spam filter which scans all incoming emails and move the mail messages that are identified as spam to Spam folder (label as Spam). All spam-tagged email messages in the Spam folder are then automatically deleted, pruned and purged from the mailbox after 30 days.
However, Gmail spam filter is not perfect, and there can be false positive where legitimate emails been marked as spam or bulk and move to Spam folder by mistake. When user is using Gmail web interface (webmail), this behavior perfectly OK as user can always go to Spam folder to examine and verify emails that have been automatically labeled as spam and reside in Spam folder. If a non-spam email is found, user can click on “Not Spam” button and the mail will automatically move back to Inbox.
However, for user who downloads email from Gmail or Google Mail server via free POP3 or IMAP access with desktop email client such as Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird will face an issue. Typically, email in Spam folder will not be downloaded when email client accesses and downloads received emails via POP3 or IMAP protocol. If the user doesn’t log in to Gmail account via web interface to check on the Spam folder at least once every 30 days, he or she will risk losing valid email that been mislabeled and mistook as spam.
Gmail never moves emails that come from senders whose email address is listed in the Gmail contact list. However, adding contact to Gmail still require user to log on to Gmail webmail interface. And user probably have to add in lots of email addresses for friends, families, colleagues, buddies and busiess contacts that keep increasing everyday in order not to miss a single mail from them that been dumped to Spam folder.
The best workaround for users who don’t use the Gmail or Google Mail webmail interface and just use desktop email client to download incoming mail through POP3 or IMAP is to disable or deactive spam filter function in Gmail. Unfortunately, Gmail does not allow users to switch off the spam filter, and to disable the spam filter, a workaround has to be used.
The trick is to use Gmail’s filter feature. Gmail supports filter to apply certain action on rules-matching incoming mail, and the filter can be created in order to force all email received to skip been sent to Spam folder and remain in Inbox (which is downloadable via POP3 or IMAP). To create a filter to disable or deactivate spam filter in Gmai, click on Create a filter link beside the search box (or go to Settings -> Filters -> Create a new filter).
In the Has the words: text box, enter one of the following terms:
is:spam or in:spam or label:spam
Click on Next Step button, and click on OK button when a dialog pops up to warn against using in:, is: or label: criteria in filter.
Check and tick the checkbox for Never send it to Spam as the filter’s action. Click on Create Filter to disable and deactivate Gmail spam filter with immediate effect.
Although from now on no spam messages will be sent to Spam folder anymore (everything stays in Inbox), Gmail is still smart enough to warn users that an email is identified as spam, but stays in Inbox and not send to Spam folder due to the filter created.
Related posts:
- How to Hide or Remove Gmail Spam Counter
- Uploader to Migrate, Upload and Import Emails and Contacts from Desktop Mail Clients to Google Apps Gmail Mailbox
- How to Delete Emails from Gmail IMAP Access Mail Client
- Get, Retrieve and Consolidate POP3 Emails with Gmail Mail Fetcher
- List of Hidden Gmail Pre-Definied Labels
nice info
There's a much easier filter. Just put an * (an asterisk) in the "From" box.
Thanks for that tip – very helpful since my HTC EVO's Gmail app doesn't consider Spam to be a Label when it comes to synchronizing.
Wow. Thanks for posting this! Perfect solution for my problem.
Thank you!
Wanted to read the advice on this page, but can't see half the page for the frigging social media toolbar stuck in the middle of the page.
so I tried this, but didn't get the warning box for either label:spam or is:spam. It just took me to the selection page, which doesn't include never mark as spam. Perhaps Gmail WANTS me to have to come to their pages to check on spam so I can view their lovely ads.
OK, the first time I was using the basic HTML from a dial-up connection. I connected to a faster wireless connection and the option was there. Go figure.
And yeah, I was wrong about the ads. Sorry, Gmail.
Very useful indeed. Great tip.
No more trawling through spam folders of the (few) accounts that I have.
You can't create a filter to catch all emails send TO you, because you will miss emails that put you in BCC.
try that: Instead, create a filter that searches for the @ symbol in the TO field, and set it to never be filtered as spam.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail/threa…
THANK YOU.
I almost missed out on a job offer last summer because of the stupid spam filter; I have several email addresses all forwarded to my main, and I rarely check the spam folders on the other ones. This should be fantastic.
Thank You,
Another option:
Under your filter,
Put in the To Line: MyUserName@gmail.com
(with the appropriate name, of course).
With the same option "Never Send it to Spam".
It might trap some group delivered mail… but I believe all my "legit" mail comes to my name.
thanks it worked
I was in basic HTML mode first time.
that was the problem
It seems the option "never send it to spam" does not exist in my gmail account
yes Don (August 1st, 2009 23:53) you're on point with your modification: just set a filter with the From criteria being *@* and tell it never to send it to spam? That way you avoid the whole “is:spam” criteria that gmail doesn’t seem to like. now the Gmail mail fetcher feature really rocks for me. thanks.
I set a filter for from address with the * (asterisk) wildcard and the filter set to never send to spam. This works as well, marking every incoming e-mail to never go to spam.
I was using a gmail checker to verify certain emails that would come through. My software could not navigate into the spam folder… But this will definitely fix that issue…
[...] simple web search shows a workaround. E.g. here or [...]
That's why no one should use POP3. Use IMAP instead and You'll have access to all spam messages…
How in the world to you turn this off? I set up this filter, everything went directly to my inbox. So I deleted this filter and everything STILL goes to my inbox. It seems like any spam filtering is now disabled and no way to go back.
Thank you it works. If only Gmail has the filter by mailed server, that would be best for my case.
How to you undo this? I tried to delete this filter that I just created in my gmail account, and my Gmail still just allows everything into my inbox.
I had yo switch to basic view to have the never send to spam option available to me.
and for explanation >> after this steps it started to work. With in:spam or is:spam or every parameter together it doesn't work.
Sorry for my English
I used more simple way:
GO TO: Settings/Filters >>
FILL: To: gmail, Has the words: gmail
Next Step >> and Tisk off
Mark as read
Never send it to spam
Then tick off Also apply filter to "$count_of_mail" conversations below.
Then: Update filter
I recently got a super-important e-mail from my bank but Google filtered it out because they thought it was spam. Since I use POP, I had no idea they had done this and almost lost the mail. I consider this to be a massive problem with Google's e-mail service but your tip has fixed it nicely. Many thanks for sharing this.
Very great job! This was quite annoying and this simple fix seems to work! Thanks again!
gmail says:
"Warning: Filter searches containing "label:", "in:", or "is:" criteria are not recommended, as these criteria will never match incoming mail.
"
what to do?
hey thank you so much for this tip
i'm really happy too.
Why not just set a filter with the From criteria being *@* and tell it never to send it to spam? That way you avoid the whole "is:spam" criteria that gmail doesn't seem to like. That's what I did and I "think" it's working. Anyone know of a reason why it wouldn't?
The only issue with that is that never send to spam has the effect of relabelling the message with the (hidden) Inbox label instead.
Your filter acts on anything *@* which is all emails – including sent email.
So anything you send gets put into the Inbox. If you use conversation view, you won't see this as a big issue, but if you don't you might do and similarly, if you use an iPhone for example, you will also see all your sent items in your inbox.
If you do use this method (and frankly there's no need because the is:spam method works), then modify your filter as follows:
from:*@* -from:your.name@yourdomain.com
which will mean your rule is applied to all email except those emails sent by you.
[...] What is the solution to this? Turn off/disable/remove the spam filter. You must do this from your web-browser interface. GMail, however, provides no such option to completely disable the spam filter. But there is a workaround that I found (see here) [...]
thanks so much for this. I was forwarding mails and gmail was marking some client mails as spam. your method worked perfectly.
Great!
I have been added to a pr0n spam list, and this has fixed everything. The spam I get all have google group links in them, so I would filter all of them by making a filter with "is:spam http://groups.google.com/group/" in it.
Thanks!
that doesn't disable anything.. you're POORLY training the engine for your account
>that doesn’t disable anything.. you’re POORLY training the engine for your account
Hah! good point! And that explains why no one could “undo” it! Brilliant. All the more reason Google should implement temporarily disabling the spam filter as a feature. I have to deal with it as I don’t have any other option. I am trying to fade out of gmail anyway.
thank you for this information. very helpful as user of thunderbird and spamcop/knujon
I always love spam to never be there on mails, but for that I couldn't find unique solution to it. Now its done and I am happy, thanks to getting known to me