Spam filtering and your Junk folder

Applies to: All plans (mailboxes included with your hosting). If your email is Professional Email (Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace), Microsoft or Google filters its spam instead.

Every message sent to a mailbox on your plan is checked for spam in two stages. Likely spam is not deleted: it is filed into the mailbox's Junk folder (some mail apps call it Spam), where you can still find it. This article explains how the filtering works, how to get a good message back, and what to send us when mail ends up in the wrong place.

How incoming mail is filtered

Known spam sources are refused. When a server on a list of known spam sources tries to deliver a message, our server refuses it before accepting it. The message never reaches your mailbox, so it is not in Junk either. The sending server normally tells its sender, with a bounce message, that delivery failed.
Everything else is scored on our server. Each message we accept is checked for signs of spam. Messages that look like spam are filed into the mailbox's Junk folder; the rest go to the Inbox.

Result: mail from known spam sources is refused before it is accepted, and suspected spam waits in Junk instead of your Inbox.

Check your Junk folder

If you are expecting a message that has not arrived, look in Junk first:

In webmail, Junk is in the folder list on the left. See how to open webmail.
In a mail app connected with IMAP (Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, or the mail app on your phone), Junk appears alongside your other folders.
In a mail app connected with POP3, only the Inbox is downloaded, so Junk never shows up in the app. Check it in webmail from time to time.

Junk is an ordinary folder in your mailbox: messages stay there until you delete them, and they take up space in the mailbox like any other mail. Once you have checked it, empty it now and then. See what happens when a mailbox is full.

A good message went to Junk

Open the Junk folder and find the message.
Move it to your Inbox: drag it there, or select it and use your app's Move option. Some apps also have a Not Junk or Not spam button that does the same.
If messages from the same sender keep landing in Junk, send us the full headers of one of them (see the last section), and we will look at why it was scored as spam. This happens more often to senders whose own domain has no working SPF or DKIM records.

Spam reached your Inbox

No filter catches everything. Move the message to Junk or delete it, and do not click its links or open its attachments. If a lot of spam gets through to one mailbox, send us the full headers of two or three examples.

Want an extra layer? cPanel includes a second, optional spam filter (SpamAssassin). It is off by default. To switch it on:

Log in to cPanel (client area -> Services -> My Services -> open the service -> Log in to cPanel).
Open Email -> Spam Filters.
Switch on Process New Emails and Mark them as Spam. On the same page you can also have the messages it marks moved into a separate folder.

The setting applies to every mailbox in your cPanel account. We recommend leaving Automatically Delete New Spam (Auto-Delete) switched off: mail deleted that way cannot be recovered, so a good message that is scored wrongly would be lost for good.

Outgoing mail is checked too

Mail you send, whether from a mailbox or from your website (a contact form, for example), is also checked for spam before it leaves: on our server and by our outbound relay. A message that looks like spam can be held back or refused, and you will usually get a bounce message saying so. If a normal message is refused, send us that bounce.

Protect the forms on your website with a CAPTCHA or a similar check. Spam sent through a form leaves from your domain and counts toward its hourly sending limit: see Email limits by plan.

What to send us when mail is misfiled or refused

A good message in Junk, or spam in your Inbox: the message's full headers. In webmail, open the message, choose More, then Show source, and copy everything down to the first blank line; or choose Download (.eml) and attach the file. In other mail apps, look for View source, Show original or Internet headers.
A sender says their message to you was refused: ask them to forward you the bounce message they received, and send it to us with the date and time they sent their message.
A message you sent was refused as spam: the bounce message you received, or the recipient's address and the time you sent it.

Always tell us which mailbox it concerns. Start a chat or email support@maxinodes.com; see What to include when you contact support.