Gmail Spam Filter – Does ‘Never Send to Spam’ Affect Training?

gmailspam-prevention

Gmail's Spam filter generates an unacceptable number of false positives for me, and I'm very wary of losing real emails. I don't really want Gmail to delete anything by default, as I don't necessarily remember to check the Spam folder every month.

So, I set up a filter on the search "is:spam" and set it to:

  • Skip the Inbox
  • Apply the label: spambin
  • Never send it to Spam

This works as intended, and now suspected spam goes into my, spambin folder instead of the Spam folder, and isn't auto-deleted.

However, Gmail still puts a lot of real emails into the spambin folder, so I'd like to train it to work better. But because the emails are no longer in the Spam folder, there's no Not Spam button for me to press, even though there's still a warning that Gmail thought the email was spam!

So my questions are:

  1. If I add the non-spam back into the spam folder and then press the Not Spam button, will this have the desired, training effect?

  2. Or will the action of putting it in the Spam folder make Gmail extra sure that the email is spam, and then pressing the Not Spam button just negate this action?

  3. Or is creating the filter equivalent to pressing the Not Spam button for every email, and so I shouldn't need to train Gmail further? (This doesn't seem to be the case, so far.)

Best Answer

By bypassing the spam filter with creating your own label, you are taking away Gmail's learning capabilities. There is probably a reason your emails are getting filtered as spam (lots of images, certain keywords, etc.)

I would suggest going back to the default: taking off your custom spam filter, placing all the known spam into the spam box by hitting the "Report Spam" button, and keeping an eye on the spam box for a while.

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