Configuring spam filtering for your mailbox.

This article is about the mailboxes of your website (email included with hosting). Their spam filtering is Apache SpamAssassin, set up in the project → Email → Spam — for all mailboxes of the hosting.

Using Rivervo Business email? Spam and virus protection is built in and there are no filter settings in the panel. Mark wrong messages as spam / not spam in your mail app or in webmail (app.aegis.email).

What SpamAssassin does

For each incoming message, SpamAssassin scores it based on dozens of rules:

• Sender authentication (SPF/DKIM/DMARC failures = +points)
• Content patterns ("viagra", "click here NOW", lots of CAPITALS = +points)
• Header analysis (forged Date, suspicious Received chain = +points)
• Blocklist checks (sender IP on Spamhaus = +points)

Messages above the spam threshold score (5.0 by default) are marked as spam.

Choosing what happens to spam

Email → Spam:

• Spam filter — on: suspicious letters are marked ([SPAM] in the subject)
• Put spam into the «spam» folder — spam goes to a spam folder instead of your inbox. The safest choice.
• Delete obvious spam at once — letters with a spam score of 10 or more are not kept. A deleted false positive is gone.

Never spam: trusted senders

Mail from a specific sender keeps landing in spam? Add them to Never spam.

Email → Spam → Never spam — one address or *@domain per line:

user@goodsender.com
*@trustedcompany.com

Save. Future mail from these senders skips spam scoring.

Always spam: blocked senders

Same page, Always spam:

user@spammer.com
*@spammydomain.com

Mail from these is auto-marked spam regardless of content.

Clearing the spam folder

In webmail (https://webmail.yourdomain.com) or your mail app: open the spam folder → empty it. Or the mailbox → ⋯ → Clean the mailbox → the spam folder → all letters.

False positives — pulling legitimate mail back

If a real message lands in spam:

1. Move it back to the inbox (or mark it Not Spam in your mail app).
2. Add the sender to Never spam (above).
3. Tell the sender they may need to set up SPF/DKIM/DMARC on their domain — the most common reason their mail gets caught.

False negatives — spam in inbox

Mark it as spam in your mail app (that trains the app's own filter). For a sender that keeps getting through, add them to Always spam. If lots of spam gets through, lower the threshold a little (below).

Strictness (the score threshold)

Email → Spam → Strictness.

Lower = more aggressive (5 is usual → 3 catches more, but more real letters get marked too). Higher = more permissive (5 → 7 catches less spam, but fewer false positives).

Don't go below 3.0. The marginal spam you'd catch isn't worth the legitimate mail you'd lose.

When SpamAssassin isn't enough

For high-volume business mail, consider moving the domain's email to Rivervo Business email (project → Email tab → Set up email), which has its own spam and virus protection. You can copy existing mail across with Mail import — see Migrating email.