Overview
In case there are issues with the spam filters set up for your users, there are some basic troubleshooting steps that you can take. Below are some common problems that can occur and what you can do to resolve them.
Too much spam is still showing up in the Inbox
- Set up blocklists for the entire domain instead of just the specific email sending the message. This way you’ll block all emails from that domain.
- Manually moving a message from the Inbox to the Spam folder will automatically report that email to the filtering system. You can move messages into the Spam folder to help train the filter.
- The anti-spam filter may not catch all of the incoming junk messages due to how the message was sent or created. DreamHost offers the option of setting up custom message filters, and you can refer to the Message Filters article (for advanced users) for further information.
Emails are not being sent to the Spam folder
If the domain is not using DreamHost's nameservers, make sure you manually update your domain's DNS with the new anti-spam filtering MX records. View the following article for instructions on how to locate your MX records:
They look like this:
- 0 mx1.mailchannels.net
- 0 mx2.mailchannels.net
Email from an allow list address is still sent to the Spam folder
- The email's From address may not match where the email was actually sent from. Try viewing the email headers and allow the sending address shown there.
- If the domain is on your Allow list, check the sender address to see if it's sent from a subdomain (example: @notices.domain.com instead of @domain.com). Domain Allow lists do not extend to subdomains. You may also need to add the subdomain to your Allow list.
- The message may have failed your sender's DMARC, DKIM, or SPF policies. When this occurs, your sender's policies can tell DreamHost to override your Allow list, and prohibit delivery of this message to the Inbox. Your sender must ensure sent emails are compliant with their domain's policies, or the Allow list will be ignored.
- If everything is configured correctly, it is still possible for an RBL to override your Allow list entry. This happens if one of the IP addresses involved in sending the message is on an RBL and has been globally reported for sending spam.