Folders no longer being scanned as spam or non-spam

[g4mby]

I've noticed that my email folders are no longer being scanned as containing spam or non-spam. The scanning seems to have stopped on 18th November. I've had plenty of new emails since then and a folder recently created is shown as not having been scanned at all.

Have I inadvertently changed a setting or is this something that needs to be brought to FastMail's attention?

[awasmuth]

Originally Posted by g4mby

I've noticed that my email folders are no longer being scanned as containing spam or non-spam. The scanning seems to have stopped on 18th November. I've had plenty of new emails since then and a folder recently created is shown as not having been scanned at all.

Have I inadvertently changed a setting or is this something that needs to be brought to FastMail's attention?

Maybe worth opening a ticket, my folders are still scanned every day:

Spam Learning: As spam [Sat, 22 Nov 08:41 (1 hour 36 minutes ago)],

[n5bb]

Originally Posted by g4mby

...I've had plenty of new emails since then and a folder recently created is shown as not having been scanned at all. Have I inadvertently changed a setting or is this something that needs to be brought to FastMail's attention?

Folders are scanned once per day. On the Advanced>Folders setup screen you can specify the scan behavior with the Spam Learning setting for each folder. Only folders configured for learning which have received new messages since the last scan are scanned.

So if you automatically or manually move new messages to folders set up for Spam learning > None, they will not be scanned so will not affect your Bayes filter.

Bill

[g4mby]

Originally Posted by n5bb

Folders are scanned once per day. On the Advanced>Folders setup screen you can specify the scan behavior with the Spam Learning setting for each folder. Only folders configured for learning which have received new messages since the last scan are scanned.

So if you automatically or manually move new messages to folders set up for Spam learning > None, they will not be scanned so will not affect your Bayes filter.

Bill, I'm well aware of how the scanning works, I was just curious to know if I there is a setting that over-rides what you have described. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

The point of my post was to say that folders which have received new emails have not been scanned since the morning of 18th November. Some of those have received new mails each day since then. The new folder that I created has been set up for scanning but hasn't. I certainly haven't changed the scan settings to every folder that I have currently.

	 2234		[Edit] Personality: [NAME], Spam Learning: As non-spam [Tue, 18 Nov 07:49 (4 days 9 hours ago)]

The folder shown above has received around 25 mails new emails each day and has not been scanned for four days now.

I've raised this with support to see what they have to say.

[n5bb]

Hmmm ... I now see that I have the opposite happening on my main account. Folders which are empty or have not received new messages in months were scanned last night. I will also contact Fastmail to see what is going on.

Bill

[awasmuth]

Originally Posted by n5bb

Hmmm ... I now see that I have the opposite happening on my main account. Folders which are empty or have not received new messages in months were scanned last night. I will also contact Fastmail to see what is going on.

I thought this is the usual behaviour. My spam folder does not receive mail on a daily basis but is scanned every day (same for the other folders).

[janusz]

Originally Posted by n5bb

Folders are scanned once per day.

Does it mean that a spammy message may sit in a folder for up to 23h59m59s and only then the message will be deleted?

[BritTim]

Originally Posted by janusz

Does it mean that a spammy message may sit in a folder for up to 23h59m59s and only then the message will be deleted?

No ... this only affects the learning behavior of your personal Bayes filter. It provides an easy way to specify what is spam and what is ham. The actual current spam settings and Bayes database control what is considered spam on email delivery.

[g4mby]

Although the support ticket that I raised hasn't been picked up yet, I've noticed that all my folders except those that haven't received any new emails were correctly scanned around 12 minutes ago.

So for me the problem seems to have been resolved.

[janusz]

Originally Posted by BritTim

this only affects the learning behavior of your personal Bayes filter. It provides an easy way to specify what is spam and what is ham.

More and more confusing.... So what exactly happens whenI click "report spam"? I thought the Bayes db gets updated instantly.... Are you saying it's updated once every 24 hours? What if I delete the message in the meantime?

[n5bb]

Originally Posted by janusz

.... So what exactly happens whenI click "report spam"? I thought the Bayes db gets updated instantly.... Are you saying it's updated once every 24 hours? What if I delete the message in the meantime?

I also wondered about this and here is what Fastmail staff told me several months ago (I'm sure it hasn't changed):

• The Report Spam button immediately adds the message(s) to your account user Bayes database (as spam) and moves them to the Spam (Junk Mail) folder.
• The Not Spam button immediately removes the message(s) from your account user Bayes database (spam category), moves them to the Inbox folder, and removes any spam marking in the subject line.
• Messages which are found in folders marked for spam learning (in Advanced>Folders) during the daily scan process for your account (which happens in the early morning New York time for me) are additionally added to your user Bayes database at scan time. You can mark folders to learn as spam or non-spam.
• You can report messages improperly categorized by the spam filter at any time, and the user Bayes database will be appropriately corrected immediately.
• So if ham (non-spam) messages are accidentally filed in your Spam folder, they will have no effect on your spam filter until the daily scan time. If you don't notice it until a day or two later, there is no big problem since you can still report it as non-spam manually. You can set the Spam (Junk Mail) or any other folder to auto-discard in the Advanced>Folders screen after some interval. I use one month for auto-discard of spam so I can determine if an alias is getting hammered.
• Also note on the Advanced>Spam/Virus Protection screen:

  Originally Posted by Allow external spam reports

  By checking this box, you agree to allow emails reported as spam (via the "Report spam" buttons/actions in the web interface, and the scheduled report spam features for folders) to be forwarded to external third parties.
  These emails are used to improve bulk email compliance and spam detection by various internet services.

Bill

[steventay]

when using 3th party email apps to move email from junk to inbox using imap

do you set inbox as learning as non spam?

still trying to learn this..
https://www.fastmail.com/help/receiv...in=fastmail.fm

[n5bb]

Originally Posted by steventay

...do you set inbox as learning as non spam?

If you leave non-spam in your Inbox, I would learn it as non-spam.

Bill

[g4mby]

FastMail have answered my support ticket and here are a couple of extracts from their reply:

The learning system only learns messages received before your last login.

The problem I've realised is that used to work ok when logins were more frequent.

As I Ieft a browser window open for several days without turning off my PC then I think the cause of the non-scanning has been found.

[n5bb]

Rob Mueller told me he was going to revise the code to eliminate this problem with long sessions.

Bill