How to keep group emails out of spam


January 2023


GMAIL EDITION

When I joined the Nordic skating lists, I frequently found that messages were winding up in my spam folder. I’ve heard from others that this is a shared problem. Here’s how to prevent that from happening, at least for Gmail accounts.


(Gmail seems to be the worst culprit, for some reason. If you would like help with other email services, please get in touch.)


This works for all email lists, but I’m going to illustrate using the Vt Nordic Skating group. Repeat as needed for each email list you want to keep out of your spam folder.


  1. Go to your Gmail inbox on a desktop computer (AFAIK this only works through the desktop web interface, though I could be wrong; it’s definitely easiest there) and open a message from the group. In the top right of the email there’s a little button that’s marked by ︙ (a vertical ellipsis, aka three dots). Click that, then click “Filter messages like this”.

2. A search box will pop up at the top of your inbox. Click the “Create filter” button.

3. A set of options for your new filter will pop up. Check the “Never send it to Spam” checkbox, then click the “Create filter” button.

4. That’s it! A message will pop up saying that your filter has been created.

No other action needed for that list, just repeat this process for any other lists you want to keep out of your spam.


If you want to check on your filters (to make sure it was created properly or to make changes), click on the gear icon at the top right of your inbox, then the “See all settings” button in the “Quick settings” panel that opens up.

Then click on the “Filters and Blocked Addresses” tab and you should a page that looks like this.

That confirms it!

—Christopher Boone, no rights reserved (CC0)