Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

How can I get rid of all the junk mail coming in? I've asked before and need to respond. Previous suggestions have not been helpful.

  • 8 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by Matt

more options

A few months back I started getting real JUNK mail---piles of ads for Viagra (I'm an 84 year old widow), some sound like porn, some are outright frauds. I get more than a dozen a day. For awhile I tried to block them. Nothing changed. It was recommended that I use the "mark as junk" and Thunderbird will "learn" what to eliminate. Over several months that hasn't helped at all. I still get the SAME stuff every day, plus Thunderbird ALSO marks a lot of my regular e-mails as "junk." So it is actually worse. What would be excellent would be a box to click named "block" so that I (!) could designate what is to be blocked. But so far I don't see that happening. This is intensely frustrating for me.

A few months back I started getting real JUNK mail---piles of ads for Viagra (I'm an 84 year old widow), some sound like porn, some are outright frauds. I get more than a dozen a day. For awhile I tried to block them. Nothing changed. It was recommended that I use the "mark as junk" and Thunderbird will "learn" what to eliminate. Over several months that hasn't helped at all. I still get the SAME stuff every day, plus Thunderbird ALSO marks a lot of my regular e-mails as "junk." So it is actually worse. What would be excellent would be a box to click named "block" so that I (!) could designate what is to be blocked. But so far I don't see that happening. This is intensely frustrating for me.

Chosen solution

You got it to post alright. three times.

But that does not change the fact that Yahoo are the people you need to talk with. Hye do not offer an Opt out for they spam filter, and it is their spam filter you are complaining about and wanting to fix.

I think you need to sit down with your son and talk about changing from IMAP to POP for your mail. Then at least you will not have to deal with the complexity of IMAP and Yahoos spam filter.

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (8)

more options

Asking over and over is not going to help either.

https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1122660 https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1121030 https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1120867

Keep in mind here that what you are trying to do is the elecronic equivalent of stopping people poking junk mail into the physical letterbox out the front of your house. Just as there is no law to stop folk poking any sort of marketing information they like into your letter box, their is also no law to stop them sending unsolicited email. It should be noted here that most of the world has a spam issue, but the US appears to have one an order of magnitude worse than everyone else because of it's weak laws in this area. In Australia for instance it is illegal to send unsolicited marketing information. Most of our spam comes from the USA. The recipient must actually opt in for marketing mail in Australia.

You have been directed to the information on managing junk mail in Thunderbird. What you have not been told is the bulk mail folder is a Yahoo folder that they put spam messages in. It has nothing to do with Thunderbird.

The best minds I can find have worked on trying to mark messages Yahoo thinks are spam as something else and move them back to the inbox. We can not do it. Yahoo just reclassifies them as spam and places the mail back in the bulk mail folder. Being synchronized to the mail server has it's drawbacks. Especially when dealing with Yahoo.

So, I suggest you just hide the folder and not see it.

  • Right click the account in the folder pane.
  • Select subscribe.
  • Deselect the folder names bulk mail.

then;

  • Right click the account in the folder pane again
  • Select settings
  • In server settings for the account select the advanced button
  • Make sure the show only subscribed folders is selected.
more options

I don't see how this would help because more and more actual mail, often from friends, has been popping up in the Junk folder. I guess I just don't understand how a server can't tell junk mail from some place in Africa, Romania, or Russia, or South America is not my usual mail! I have been getting a lot of stuff in Spanish and I don't speak Spanish!

more options

Then ask your provider. Thunderbird is client software running on your computer. There are no servers. Providers have servers. If the spam is appearing to come from your friends they are being careless with their email address and a spammer has borrowed their address and contact list to send their spam with.

more options

You misunderstand completely. My friends are not the source of the junk mail. The mail coming from them is not spam. But now Thunderbird has been mixing my regular mail into the junk box, while it also lets all the real junk come in day after day. Most of it the true junk comes from outside of the US. Some is fraud. That is so easy to spot. As I said I have tried using the block directions, but I could list the same thing over and over and it never got blocked.

more options

You misunderstand completely. My friends are not the source of the junk mail. The mail coming from them is not spam. But now Thunderbird has been mixing my regular mail into the junk box, while it also lets all the real junk come in day after day. Most of it the true junk comes from outside of the US. Some is fraud. That is so easy to spot. As I said I have tried using the block directions, but I could list the same thing over and over and it never got blocked.

more options

See above. This is so confusing.

more options

I can't get this to post! I do not like chat rooms. I don't know how to use them well. It is hard to be 84 and expected to be tech savvy.

more options

Chosen Solution

You got it to post alright. three times.

But that does not change the fact that Yahoo are the people you need to talk with. Hye do not offer an Opt out for they spam filter, and it is their spam filter you are complaining about and wanting to fix.

I think you need to sit down with your son and talk about changing from IMAP to POP for your mail. Then at least you will not have to deal with the complexity of IMAP and Yahoos spam filter.