Category: Technology

How to Use SpamFoo in SmarterMail: A Guide for Domain Administrators

When legitimate email repeatedly lands in Junk Email, it helps to know whether you should review Trusted Senders, SpamFoo, or both.

Trusted Senders identifies addresses you trust. SpamFoo analyzes messages and provides tools for reviewing filtering decisions, managing sender rules, and organizing your Inbox.

This guide explains which tool to review, how to open SpamFoo, and how to make corrections. It also covers settings that domain administrators can manage for their organization.

You do not need to complete every step to resolve one email problem. Start with the comparison table below, then follow the instructions that apply to your situation.

What Is SpamFoo?

SpamFoo analyzes email using message content, sender information, authentication results, and machine learning. It can identify unwanted messages and organize legitimate email into four classifications:

• Primary: Everyday correspondence and important messages.
• Transactions: Receipts, order confirmations, and similar business activity.
• Updates: Notifications, subscriptions, and informational messages.
• Promotions: Offers and marketing messages.

A legitimate message under Promotions or Updates has not necessarily been marked as spam. It may simply appear under a different classification in your Inbox.

How Is SpamFoo Different from Trusted Senders?

Trusted Senders is an exception list: it identifies specific email addresses or domains you trust.

SpamFoo analyzes messages and applies rules: it helps determine whether email is unwanted and how legitimate messages should be classified. It also learns from corrections made in webmail. SpamFoo feedback documentation.

Review Trusted Senders when a known sender’s legitimate messages need trusted treatment. Review SpamFoo when investigating its filtering decisions, learned corrections, or sender rules.

For instructions on trusting an address, recovering a legitimate message from Junk Email, and understanding the limits of trusted treatment, see our SmarterMail Trusted Senders guide.

Which Tool Should You Use First?

We recommend starting with the problem you are trying to solve:

Situation	Which Should You Review?
Legitimate senders email is showing up in Junk Email	Trusted Senders: Check whether the specific address is listed. Follow our Trusted Senders guide to verify the sender, add the address, and recover the message
A sender is already in Trusted Senders, but legitimate messages still go to Junk Email.	Both: Confirm the trusted address matches the affected sender, then review SpamFoo for relevant rules or previous spam corrections. Contact support if the cause remains unclear.
Unwanted messages continue reaching your Inbox.	SpamFoo: Review relevant rules and correct missed spam in webmail. Also check that the sender has not accidentally been added to Trusted Senders.
Same senders messages are incorrectly filtered for several employees.	SpamFoo and domain-level Trusted Senders: Have your domain administrator review shared rules and trusted entries.
Message is missing from both the Inbox and Junk Email folder.	Contact support first: A missing message alone does not identify which setting needs changing.

Start with the setting that matches the problem. For a known sender repeatedly going to Junk Email, check Trusted Senders first. If the sender is already trusted, unwanted mail continues arriving, or several employees experience the same issue, review the relevant SpamFoo settings and involve your domain administrator as needed.

You do not need to add a sender to both systems automatically. Neither a trusted entry nor a SpamFoo rule guarantees delivery.

Before You Begin

Knowing which screen and account you need will be important for this process. You will use two places during this guide:

• SmarterMail webmail: Your regular Email screen, where you read messages, open Junk Email, and make message corrections.
• SpamFoo Dashboard: A separate browser window for reviewing SpamFoo activity and managing available rules.

Your account permissions also matter:

• Individual users (your employee accounts) can work with their own mailbox.
• Domain administrators (account owner or IT) have additional access to their domain’s information and policies.
• System administrators (Skynet Solutions) manage the server and settings that affect all hosted domains.

A domain is the part after the @ in an email address. For example, alex@example.com and billing@example.com belong to the same domain.

There is no desktop application to install for this guide. SmarterMail handles its integrated SpamFoo software on the server and your access is via a web browser.

If you only manage your own email, you can skip the domain-rule instructions in Step 3.

Step 1: Open SpamFoo in Your Browser

1. Sign in through your normal SmarterMail webmail address.
2. Open Email.
3. At the top of the folder pane, select Actions (⋮).
4. Select SpamFoo Dashboard.

SpamFoo opens in a separate browser window and signs you in automatically.

If the menu is missing, contact Skynet Solutions Support to confirm availability and your account settings. If clicking it does not open a window, check whether your browser blocked the new window.

Step 2: Check That You Are Managing the Domain

Continue in the SpamFoo Dashboard.

Before changing anything, establish who the change should affect.

If you are troubleshooting only your own email, use your personal mailbox view. If you administer the domain and are investigating a problem affecting several employees, use the domain administrator view offered to your account.

Domain administrators have access to their own domain; ordinary users do not receive those domain controls. If you cannot find a domain view, have support confirm your permissions. SpamFoo administrator permissions.

Use the dashboard’s activity information alongside actual examples of affected messages. A summary count alone will not explain why a particular invoice went to Junk Email.

When reviewing your personal settings, My Rules includes custom and trained rules. Trained rules reflect previous corrections made in webmail. They can be deleted, but not edited. Personal SpamFoo rules.

Review relevant entries before adding another rule. If a previous correction was accidental, it may help explain the behavior you are now seeing.

Step 3: Review Domain Rules and Add One When Needed

Domain administrators only. Continue in the SpamFoo Dashboard.

Start by reviewing existing rules. A rule may already explain the behavior being reported.

1. Open Rules & Protection in the domain view.
2. Select Domain Rules.
3. Look for the sender’s address or a pattern covering its domain.

If a new rule is needed:

1. Click Add Rule.
2. Enter the sender address or supported pattern.
3. Choose the intended behavior offered by the form.
4. Save and verify the entry.

SpamFoo supports exact addresses and patterns such as *@example.com. Use Edit to manage existing rules; match counts indicate whether they have been used. Domain rule instructions.

Choose the narrowest rule that solves the problem. An entry for receipts@example.com affects less mail than one covering every sender at example.com.

Do not copy SpamFoo wildcard syntax into Trusted Senders. That list accepts addresses or plain domains, such as example.com, without wildcards. Trusted Senders entry requirements.

Within SpamFoo, server rules take priority over domain rules, and domain rules take priority over personal rules. A personal setting cannot override a conflicting domain rule. This hierarchy does not mean a SpamFoo rule bypasses every other SmarterMail delivery control. SpamFoo rule hierarchy.

If you are unsure about an existing rule’s purpose, check with the person who manages your email before changing it.

Step 4: Test Your SpamFoo Changes

After adding, editing, or removing a rule:

1. Record what you changed and why.
2. Ask the sender for a fresh test message.
3. Check the affected mailbox.
4. If you changed a domain policy, check another relevant mailbox as well.
5. Confirm whether the result matches what you intended.

A fresh message helps test future handling. Moving an existing message to Inbox only confirms that you recovered that message.

Normal spam corrections in webmail also provide feedback to SpamFoo. For help recovering legitimate messages and deciding whether to trust their senders, follow our Trusted Senders guide.

If filtering continues, contact support instead of adding increasingly broad exceptions. Review existing exceptions periodically as vendors, services, and responsibilities change.

Optional: Configure Protected Identities

For domain administrators managing impersonation protection.

Protected Identities is an additional SpamFoo feature. It is not a required step for resolving an ordinary Trusted Senders issue.

Consider protecting executives, payroll staff, or IT contacts whose names could be used in fraudulent messages.

Return to the domain’s Rules & Protection area and open Protected Identities.

For each identity:

1. Add the person’s or role’s display name.
2. Specify approved sending information for the selected matching mode.
3. Save and enable the identity.
4. Test legitimate messages, including those from authorized outside services.

In relaxed matching mode, SpamFoo checks approved domains. Strict mode checks full email addresses.

Delegated Senders accommodates authorized outside senders acting on behalf of protected identities. These exceptions apply across the domain’s protected identities, so confirm the authorization before adding one. Protected Identities and matching modes.

Need Help with SpamFoo?

Skynet Solutions email hosting customers can contact support for help with missing dashboard controls, unexpected SpamFoo behavior, or domain rules.

Provide an example of the problem, the affected sender and recipient, the approximate sending time, and any settings you changed. Keep the original message available.

If a control is missing, a screenshot of the relevant screen can help support identify what your account displays. Hide unrelated private message information.

For help adding trusted addresses or recovering legitimate messages from Junk Email, see our SmarterMail Trusted Senders guide.

Learn more about Skynet Solutions business email hosting.

If you’re expecting an important email but can’t find it in your Inbox, there’s a chance it was identified as spam and delivered to your Junk Email folder.

Spam filtering is an important part of protecting your email account from unwanted and potentially malicious messages. Occasionally, however, a legitimate message may be incorrectly identified as spam. Regularly reviewing the contents of your junk mail folder should be completed weekly.

Skynet Solutions uses SmarterMail Enterprise by SmarterTools for our hosted email platform. SmarterMail provides a feature called Trusted Senders that allows you to identify email addresses you trust.

If you’re familiar with the term “whitelisting,” this is essentially what you’ll be doing. In SmarterMail, the feature is referred to as Trust Sender and the addresses you trust are maintained in your Trusted Senders list.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to locate a legitimate email in your Junk Email folder, trust the sender, move the message back to your Inbox, and manage your Trusted Senders list.

Before You Trust a Sender

Before adding an email address to your Trusted Senders list, make sure you recognize the sender and are confident that the message is legitimate.

Do not trust a sender simply because the name or email address displayed on a message looks familiar. The “From” address of an email can potentially be spoofed, and phishing messages are often designed to appear as though they came from a legitimate company, coworker, customer, or service.

Be especially cautious if an unexpected message asks you to:

• Click a link to sign in or verify your account
• Open or download an unexpected attachment
• Provide a password or other sensitive information
• Send or change payment information
• Purchase gift cards or transfer money
• Take an urgent action you weren’t expecting

If you’re unsure whether a message is legitimate, contact the sender through a method you already trust before adding the address to your Trusted Senders list.

Step 1: Log In to SmarterMail Webmail

Start by signing in to your Skynet Solutions SmarterMail webmail account using your normal webmail login.

After signing in, select Email to open your mailbox.

You should see your email folders along with the messages contained in your mailbox.

Step 2: Open Your Junk Email Folder

From your list of email folders, locate and open the Junk Email folder.

SmarterMail places messages that meet certain spam-filtering criteria into this folder based on the spam filtering policies applied to your account and domain.

Find the legitimate message that was incorrectly classified as spam.

Before continuing, take a moment to confirm:

• You recognize the sender.
• The sender’s email address is what you expected.
• The subject and content of the message make sense.
• You were expecting the message or otherwise know why it was sent.

Once you’re confident the message is legitimate, you can add its sender to your Trusted Senders list.

 

 

Step 3: Trust the Sender

With the legitimate message located in your Junk Email folder, you can tell SmarterMail that you trust email from that sender.

1. Select the Message

Click the email to open it, or select the message from the message list.

Make sure you’ve selected the correct message before continuing. The email address associated with that message is the address you’ll be telling SmarterMail to trust.

2. Locate the Message Actions

With the message selected or open, look at the available message actions in the SmarterMail toolbar.

Depending on your version of SmarterMail, browser window size, and device, some actions may be displayed directly on the toolbar while additional actions may be available from the Actions or More (…) menu.

3. Select “Trust Sender”

Locate and select Trust Sender from the available message actions.

This tells SmarterMail that you consider messages from that email address legitimate.

SmarterMail will add the sender’s email address to your personal Trusted Senders list.

4. Confirm the Correct Sender

Pay attention to the email address you’re trusting rather than relying only on the sender’s display name.

For example, a message might display: ABC Company Billing

but the actual email address could be: billing@example.com

It is the email address—not simply the displayed name—that is important when deciding whether a sender should be trusted.

Step 4: Move the Existing Message to Your Inbox

Trusting the sender is intended to help SmarterMail handle future messages from that sender appropriately.

The message that was already placed in your Junk Email folder may still need to be moved manually.

Select the message and use SmarterMail’s Move option to move it to your Inbox or another appropriate mail folder.

You can then read, reply to, forward, or otherwise work with the message normally.

Step 5: Verify the Address in Your Trusted Senders List

If you’d like to make sure the email address was successfully added, you can review your Trusted Senders list from within SmarterMail.

Open Settings in the SmarterMail interface and navigate to your Spam Filtering settings. This could be under the “More” button (More > Settings > Spam Filtering).

Locate the Trusted Senders section. Click the edit icon to view the sections.

The email address you trusted should now appear in this list.

This area is also useful if you want to review addresses you’ve previously trusted or remove an address that should no longer be trusted.

 

Adding a Trusted Sender Manually

You don’t have to wait for a message to appear in your Junk Email folder before adding a sender to your Trusted Senders list.

If you already know an email address that should be trusted, you can add it manually.

Open your Settings, navigate to your Spam Filtering settings, and locate the Trusted Senders section.

You can enter a specific email address, such as: billing@example.com

SmarterMail also allows a domain to be added as a trusted sender, such as: example.com

When entering multiple addresses or domains, place each entry on its own line.

SmarterMail does not support wildcards in the Trusted Senders list.

Should You Trust an Email Address or an Entire Domain?

Whenever possible, we recommend trusting a specific email address rather than an entire domain.

For example, suppose you need to receive automated notifications from: notifications@example.com

Adding that specific address trusts the sender you know and expect.

Adding: example.com

is broader because it applies to email coming from addresses throughout that domain.

There are situations where trusting an entire domain makes sense. For example, your business may regularly communicate with many different employees at a trusted partner organization.

However, domain-level Trusted Sender entries should be used more selectively. For most individual users, trusting the specific email address they need is the better choice.

What Does “Trust Sender” Actually Do?

When you select Trust Sender, SmarterMail adds the email address to your personal Trusted Senders list.

Messages from addresses on this list are exempted from most spam-filtering checks that could otherwise cause legitimate messages to be classified as spam.

There is an important distinction, however:

Trusting a sender does not disable all of SmarterMail’s email security protections.

SmarterMail can continue performing email authentication checks such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.

These technologies help determine whether the server delivering a message is actually authorized to send email for the address or domain it claims to represent.

This provides an important layer of protection against email spoofing.

Think of the Trusted Senders feature as telling SmarterMail:

“I regularly receive legitimate email from this address.”

It does not mean: “Automatically assume every message claiming to be from this address is safe.”

That distinction allows Trusted Senders to help reduce false-positive spam filtering without unnecessarily eliminating important email authentication protections.

Removing an Address from Trusted Senders

If you accidentally trust the wrong email address—or simply no longer want an address to be treated as trusted—you can remove it.

Open Settings in SmarterMail and return to your Spam Filtering settings.

Locate the Trusted Senders section and find the email address or domain you want to remove.

Remove the entry and save your changes if prompted.

Future messages from that sender will once again be processed according to the normal spam filtering rules applied to your mailbox.

What If a Trusted Sender Still Goes to Junk Email?

Adding an address to your Trusted Senders list can resolve many false-positive spam issues, but it does not guarantee that every future message claiming to come from that address will automatically reach your Inbox.

If messages from a Trusted Sender continue appearing in Junk Email, there may be another issue affecting message delivery.

For example:

The Sender’s Email Authentication May Be Failing

The sending mail server may have an issue with its SPF, DKIM, or DMARC configuration.

These authentication methods help receiving mail servers verify that a message is legitimately associated with the domain it claims to represent.

The Sender May Be Using a Different Email Address

Businesses and online services frequently use multiple addresses for different types of email.

For example: billing@example.com

and

notifications@example.com

are two different sender addresses.

Trusting one address does not necessarily mean you’ve trusted another address from the same domain.

Check the actual sender address on the new message and compare it with the address in your Trusted Senders list.

The Message May Be Subject to Additional Mail Server Policies

Your mailbox is only one part of the email filtering process.

Depending on your organization’s email configuration, additional spam filtering or security policies may be applied at the domain or server level.

If legitimate messages continue being filtered after you’ve trusted the sender, additional investigation may be necessary.

Don’t Automatically Trust Every Message in Junk Email

The Junk Email folder exists for an important reason.

While false positives can occur, many messages placed in Junk Email are there because SmarterMail identified characteristics commonly associated with spam, spoofing, or unwanted email.

Review each message individually.

A legitimate-looking company logo, familiar sender name, or convincing email design is not enough by itself to establish that a message is safe.

If something about a message seems unusual, verify it before clicking links, opening attachments, replying, or adding the sender to your Trusted Senders list.

SmarterMail Trusted Senders and Spam Filtering Resources

SmarterTools maintains detailed documentation for SmarterMail administrators and users.

For additional information, refer to the following SmarterMail resources:

SmarterMail User Spam Filtering

SmarterTools’ Spam Filtering documentation explains user-level spam filtering settings, including Trusted Senders and Blocked Senders.

https://help.smartertools.com/smartermail/current/topics/user/Settings/MySettings/Filtering/MySpamFiltering

SmarterMail Domain Spam Filtering

Domain administrators can also review SmarterTools’ documentation regarding domain-level spam filtering settings and Trusted Senders.

https://help.smartertools.com/SmarterMail/Current/Topics/DomainAdmin/Settings/DomainSpamFiltering

These resources are maintained by SmarterTools and can provide additional information about the options available in your version of SmarterMail.

Need Help with SmarterMail?

Skynet Solutions provides SmarterMail Enterprise email hosting for businesses that need professional hosted email and webmail services.

If you’re a Skynet Solutions email hosting customer and legitimate messages continue to be delivered to your Junk Email folder after you’ve added the sender to your Trusted Senders list, contact Skynet Solutions Support.

Our support team can help investigate the message and determine whether the issue is related to your mailbox settings, spam filtering, the sending mail server, or the sender’s email authentication configuration.

When contacting support about a filtering issue, do not delete the affected message from your Junk Email folder. Keeping the original message available can provide useful information when troubleshooting why it was classified as spam.