Why are my whitelisted email addresses being flagged as spam?

If you have set up your spam filter settings to change the subject line of spam emails to be ‘***SPAM***’, and you have also whitelisted some email addresses and domains (indicating that they are never spam emails), you may still see some emails being flagged as spam.

This occurs when the listed “From” address in the email headers does not match the actual sender of the email.  This can happen due to automatic emails sent to you through a system (such as an order confirmation) or due to an email client sending emails for a different account (such as checking and sending emails through Gmail).

To find the actual sender, view the headers of the email. Most mail programs have a “View Headers” option to make this easier.

In the headers, you should see something like:

Return-Path: <[email protected]>
…
…
…
To: [email protected]
Subject: This Email
Reply-To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]

In this case, even though the email appears to have come from [email protected], it has actually come from [email protected].

This is the email address that needs including in your spam whitelist.

If you have recipients complaining about your emails appearing in spam folders even after being whitelisted, please check your own headers and let them know if there is another email address in the Return-Path.