Follow these troubleshooting steps if important emails from people, companies, or other senders are classified as spam instead of reaching your primary inbox.
The troubleshooting tips here mainly address Gmail although people who use Apple Mail, Microsoft Outlook, Yahoo, or similar email services may find some of the steps in this article useful. You don’t need to follow every tip below but do read them all so you know enough about keep important emails out of the spam folder.
Also see: How to better manage Gmail app notifications on iPhone
Move spam messages to your primary inbox
GOpen Gmail on the web, access the Spam section, and open the message you’d like to move to the primary inbox, then click the folder icon in the Gmail toolbar at the top and choose the Inbox option. For blocked email senders, use the Move to Inbox button instead.
Remove the spam label from the email
Open the spam email on the Gmail website using your computer, then hit the little x next to the Spam label in the subject field to reclassify this message as non-spam.
Mark the email as not spam
Gmail categorizes emails from untrusted senders and spammy domains as spam. However, in some cases Gmail’s built-in spam filters can get things wrong. If you think there’s an error, open the message on the Gmail website or mobile app and tap Report not spam in message body. Doing so will tweak the algorithm so that Gmail sends future emails from this sender right to your primary inbox.
Reply to the message
Another useful tip to ensure an email from a specific sender or domain doesn’t get relegated to the spam folder is replying. This trick will work for real emails that your email provider has wrongly labeled spam, but it will be useless for no-reply email sent from noreply@domain.com or similar address.
Unblock the sender
A blocked email sender can still send you emails, but Gmail will automatically forward them to the Spam folder. This is different from chat apps, where a blocked sender cannot message you at all. I’ve blocked promotional emails from my bank and food delivery apps in the past, but new messages from them kept filling my spam folder instead.
To stop emails from blocked people or domains from automatically going into spam, simply unblock their blocked Gmail senders. Or, open the email in the Spam section and tap Unblock sender.
Create a rule to stops emails from specific senders be classified as spam
If none of the above tips proved helpful so far, create an email rule which will configure Gmail to ensure emails from that sender are never classed as spam.
1) Open a message classified as spam on your computer.
2) Click the three-dotted icon in the top-right corner and choose Filter messages like this.
3) Click Create filter at the bottom of the popup sheet.
4) Check Never send it to Spam, then hit the blue Create filter button. Future emails from this particular sender will no longer hit the spam folder.
Many large companies use several domains to email customers. Your bank may use email addresses like offer@bankname.com, communication@en.bankname.com, discounts@general.bankname.com, and similar. An email filter is a good way to ensure important emails from a specific sender reach your primary inbox, but you’ll need to create separate filters for all email addresses a company uses.
Check your Gmail filters
Gmail lets you set filters based on multiple parameters, some of which can cause emails to bypass the primary inbox. One of my filters archives all incoming emails matching the word “offers.” If you have a similar filter set up, be sure it’s not the reason why some of your important emails are missing from the primary inbox.
1) Open the Gmail website in a we browser.
2) Click the settings gear icon in the top-right corner and choose See all settings.
3) Select Filters and Blocked Addresses.
4) Edit your existing rule to tweak its settings or delete it.
Add important email addresses to your contacts list
Let but not least, adding a sender’s email address to your contacts list informs your email client to treat them as important senders. On Gmail, simply copy a sender’s email address and save it to Google Contacts. In Apple’s built-in Mail app on the iPhone, iPad and Mac, touch the sender’s name to expand the header, then hit their email address and choose Create New Contact to save it.
On a related note: How to get a burner or throwaway email inbox on iPhone, Mac, and other devices