Controlling SPAM in cPanel email accounts

On cPanel based hosting & email accounts, we use Spam Filters to filter incoming mail. This quick guide will give you some tips and guidance on how to reduce the amount of SPAM in your inbox.

How the Filter System Works

The Spam Filters use a point-based system called “hits” to label spam. When it finds particular characteristics in an email it assigns a point value. These characteristics can include everything from words and topics commonly found in spam emails, to malicious code, and even custom values you set yourself. If the email exceeds the maximum point value you set, the email is flagged as spam.

The lower the score you set, the more email will be caught as spam. For example, a setting of 1 means that only one hit needs to be flagged against an email for it to be considered spam, a setting of 10 means 10 hits will be required before the email is labeled as spam. So, the lower the score, the more emails should be flagged as spam.

Our default settings is 5, which is a good starting point. You can increase or decrease this default setting according to your needs.

How to Modify the Spam Filter Threshold Score

1. Log into cPanel at https://cart.ie/cpanel. (or use the One-Click-Login option in your Always Amber account at https://www.alwaysamber.ie/panel/clientarea.php?action=services )
2. Under the Email section, click on the Spam Filters icon.
3. Under the toggle switch labeled: Process New Emails and Mark them as Spam, there is a brief description of how Spam Filters work. Click on the link at the end, Spam Threshold Score.
4. Select a value from the Spam Threshold Score (required_score) drop-down menu.

   NOTE: The lower the Spam Threshold Score, the more strict the filter will be, resulting in the possibility of less spam appearing in your inbox. However, this may also cause more legitimate emails to be identified as spam (and possibly filtered away from your inbox).

   On the contrary, the higher the Spam Threshold Score, the less strict the filter will be, resulting in the possibility of fewer emails being falsely identified as spam. However, this may also cause more spam to appear in your inbox.

   The best way to determine which Spam Score is optimal for your email activity is to monitor the behavior closely while experimenting with various Spam Threshold Scores. 

5. Finally, click the Update Scoring Options button to save your new Spam Threshold Score.

How to Automatically Delete New Spam

Once you are satisfied that your threshold score for the Spam Filter is correctly set, you may wish to have emails marked as SPAM automatically deleted from the server. Once enabled, this feature will automatically delete email messages assigned a spam score higher than your configured value. Here’s how to enable/disable the Auto-Delete feature from within the Spam Filters interface in cPanel.

1. Log into cPanel.
2. Click on the Spam Filters icon under the Email section.
3. Click on the Automatically Delete New Spam (Auto-Delete) toggle.
   
   The toggle should change to blue and a green success message will appear, indicating: “Spam Auto-Delete has been enabled.”
4. To disable Auto-Delete, simply click the same toggle.
   
   The toggle should change to grey and a green success message will appear, indicating: “Spam Auto-Delete has been disabled.”

How to Whitelist or Blacklist certain emails or domains

If you find you are receiving large amounts of SPAM from a particular domain, or, emails from a particular organisation are incorrectly marked as SPAM you can use Whitelist and Blacklist filters to help with this.

Let's look at how to Whitelist a domain first, Whitelisting means that any email sent from the whitelisted domain or email address will not be checked by the Spam Filters.

1. Log into cPanel.
2. Click on the Spam Filters icon under the Email section.
3. Scroll down until you see the Additional Configurations (For Advanced Users) option and click on Additional Configurations link.
4. Click on the Edit Spam Whitelist Settings option to see all your current Spam Whitelist Items.
5. Click on Add A New “whitelist_from” Item and enter either a full email address or domain name in the box (example: joe@bloggs.ie will whitelist mail sent from just joe@bloggs.ie, entering bloggs.ie will whitelist all mail from bloggs.ie).
6. Click Update Whitelist to save your settings.

Blacklisting a domain means all email sent from the domain or email address will be rejected and deleted. Here's how to setup blacklisting:

1. Log into cPanel.
2. Click on the Spam Filters icon under the Email section.
3. Scroll down until you see the Additional Configurations (For Advanced Users) option and click on Additional Configurations link.
4. Click on the Edit Spam Blacklist Settings option to see all your current Spam Blacklist Items.
5. Click on Add A New “blacklist_from” Item and enter either a full email address or domain name in the box (example: joe@bloggs.ie will block mail sent from just joe@bloggs.ie, entering bloggs.ie will block all mail from bloggs.ie).
6. Click Update Blacklist to save your settings.

Keeping your inbox free of SPAM can take a bit of effort at first. We recommend testing the various options available to see which one is the best fit for you.

You can also take a look at our Spam & Filtering options, which may offer a better option to meet your needs.