Apple Mail Junk Mail Settings in 2026: Filter Spam on a Mac

Apple Mail's junk filter lives in Mail > Settings > Junk Mail on a Mac. Select Enable junk mail filtering, then choose what happens to junk: leave it in your Inbox marked as junk, move it to the Junk mailbox, or run custom actions. Train the filter by clicking Junk or Not Junk in the toolbar, and block persistent senders in the Blocked pane.

Spam in a Mac inbox is rarely one problem. Sometimes the filter is off, sometimes it's too eager and a client's invoice ends up next to fake shipping notices, and sometimes your email provider is doing the filtering and Mail is only showing you the result. This guide walks through every junk setting in Mail on macOS, what each one actually changes, how to teach the filter, and how to fix it when it errs in either direction.

Apple Mail junk settings at a glance

Mail for macOS has five places that control spam: the Junk Mail settings, the Advanced custom actions, the Blocked pane, your account's Mailbox Behaviors, and the Junk and Not Junk buttons you click every day. The table maps each one to the job it does, based on Apple's Junk Mail settings guide.

How to turn on the junk mail filter in Apple Mail

To turn on spam filtering in Apple Mail, choose Mail > Settings, click Junk Mail, and select Enable junk mail filtering. Then pick how Mail should treat messages it thinks are junk. These steps follow Apple's guide to managing junk mail:

1. Open Mail and choose Mail > Settings from the menu bar.
2. Click the Junk Mail tab.
3. Select Enable junk mail filtering.
4. Under When junk mail arrives, choose Mark as junk mail, but leave it in my Inbox, Move it to the Junk mailbox or Perform custom actions.
5. Choose which senders are exempt: people in Contacts, people you've previously corresponded with, and messages addressed using your full name.
6. Select Trust junk mail headers in messages and Filter junk mail before applying my rules.

The first choice is the one that matters. Apple suggests the "leave it in my Inbox" option while you want to check what the filter catches, and moving junk out of sight once you're confident it gets it right. Messages it flags show up highlighted with a banner, so nothing disappears while you're still building trust.

When I set up Mail on a new Mac, I start on the mark-and-leave option and correct whatever the filter gets wrong as it comes in. Once a stretch goes by where every highlighted message really is junk, I switch to Move it to the Junk mailbox and stop seeing spam at all.

Which exemptions to keep

Keep all three exemptions on unless you have a reason not to. Mail from your contacts and from people you've already emailed is the mail you're least likely to want buried. The full-name exemption is the one worth questioning: spam can use your full name too, since names travel with email addresses on mailing lists, so if you see junk slipping through with your name in the To line, try clearing that box.

Why to trust headers and filter before rules

Trust junk mail headers in messages tells Mail to use the spam check your email provider has already done; Apple says this helps Mail identify junk more accurately. Filter junk mail before applying my rules matters if you have rules that file mail into folders. Without it, a rule can move a spam message into a project folder before the filter ever looks at it, and you'll find junk in places you'd never think to check.

Mark email as junk or not junk to train the filter

Apple Mail's junk filter learns from you. Each time you mark a message as junk or not junk, Apple says the filter gets better at telling the two apart, so the corrections you make early on are worth the few seconds each takes. The controls come from Apple's junk mail guide and keyboard shortcuts list:

• Mark as junk: select the message and click the Junk button in the toolbar, or press Shift-Command-J. Mail moves it to the Junk mailbox.
• Mark as not junk: click Move to Inbox in the message's banner, or click Not Junk in the toolbar. Mail moves it back to your Inbox.
• Several at once: select a group of messages with Command-click before clicking Junk.

Two habits make the training work. Mark spam as junk instead of just deleting it, because deleting teaches the filter nothing. And open the Junk mailbox now and then to rescue anything real. The first time a new supplier's invoice landed in my Junk mailbox, I clicked Not Junk and added the sender to Contacts in the same minute, so the contacts exemption would cover them from then on.

Set custom junk rules with Advanced

Apple Mail's Advanced junk settings let you decide exactly what counts as junk and what happens to it, such as moving it to a specific mailbox or deleting it. The button only appears after you choose Perform custom actions. Apple's Advanced settings guide describes the window:

1. In Mail > Settings > Junk Mail, select Perform custom actions.
2. Click Advanced.
3. Give the custom action a description.
4. Choose whether a message must match any or all of the conditions, then set each condition with the pop-up menus. The Add and Remove buttons beside each row add or drop conditions.
5. Under Perform the following actions, choose what Mail does with a match, such as Move Message to a mailbox you pick.
6. Click OK.

If you've turned on exemptions, Apple notes they show up in this window as conditions, with all selected. Leave them in place when you edit.

I don't use custom actions much. The one case where they earn their keep is routing suspected junk to a "Review" mailbox on the Mac instead of the server's Junk folder, so it stays in front of me but out of the Inbox. For everything else, the plain Move it to the Junk mailbox option is easier to live with.

Block a sender in Apple Mail

To block someone in Mail for macOS, select one of their messages, click the small arrow beside their name in the message header, and choose Block Sender. Apple's guide says you can block up to 3,000 senders, and Unblock Sender in the same menu reverses it.

Where a blocked sender's mail ends up is set in the Blocked pane. Apple's Blocked settings guide lists these options:

1. Choose Mail > Settings, click Junk Mail, then click Blocked.
2. Select Enable blocked mail filtering.
3. Choose Mark as blocked mail, but leave it in my Inbox to keep it visible with a banner, or Move it to the Trash to send it straight to Trash.
4. Click Manage Blocked Contacts to see or edit the full list. It opens System Settings > Privacy & Security > Blocked Contacts.

Block a real person who keeps writing to you; mark bulk spam as junk. Bulk spam often arrives from a fresh address each time, so blocking each one fills the list without slowing them down, while marking it as junk teaches the filter what the next one will look like. When a former vendor kept emailing me after I'd asked to be removed, blocking was the right tool, because it was one sender who wasn't going away.

Empty the Junk mailbox and delete junk automatically

To empty junk in Apple Mail, press Option-Command-J, the shortcut Apple lists as "Erase junk mail" in its keyboard shortcuts guide. To have Mail clean it up on a schedule, use the account's Erase junk messages setting instead:

1. Choose Mail > Settings and click Accounts.
2. Select the account in the list, then click Mailbox Behaviors.
3. Open the Erase junk messages menu and pick when Mail should delete junk.

Apple's Mailbox Behaviors guide recommends choosing something other than Never so old junk doesn't eat into your provider's storage. On the same screen, IMAP accounts have a Junk Mailbox option for picking which mailbox stores junk; Apple suggests setting it the same way on every Mac that uses the account, so you don't end up with two Junk mailboxes in the sidebar. The options shown vary by account type, and if your provider deletes old messages on its server, that happens no matter what you pick here.

Before I erase junk, I scroll the Junk mailbox once, sorted by sender. It takes seconds, and it's the only moment a misfiled message can still be rescued.

Why spam still gets into Apple Mail (or real mail lands in Junk)

Spam reaches a Mac inbox through two filters, not one: your email provider's server filter and Mail's own filter on your Mac. Apple's settings guide points out that if your account filters junk on the server, messages can land in Junk even with Mail's filter turned off. When something goes wrong, work out which filter made the call. Run through this list:

1. The filter is off or set to leave junk in the Inbox. Check Mail > Settings > Junk Mail. Highlighted messages in your Inbox mean the filter is working but set to the mark-and-leave option.
2. A rule runs first. Select Filter junk mail before applying my rules so rules can't file spam away before the check.
3. The sender is exempt. A spam address saved in Contacts, or one you once replied to, skips Mail's filter. Remove the contact or clear that exemption.
4. The filter hasn't learned enough yet. Keep marking junk with Shift-Command-J for a few weeks rather than deleting it.
5. Your provider moved it. If good mail keeps landing in Junk with Mail's filter off, the server did it. Mark it as not spam in your provider's own app as well, such as Gmail on the web.
6. The filter has learned the wrong things. As a last step, click Reset in the Junk Mail settings. Apple warns this deletes everything Mail has learned from you about junk mail, so use it only when the filter is clearly getting it wrong.

Gmail and iCloud accounts in Apple Mail

For a Gmail account in Apple Mail, Gmail's server filter does most of the work. Google's spam help page says reported messages go to Spam and Gmail uses those reports to spot similar email, so when you rescue a message in Mail, also marking it Not spam in Gmail on the web gives Gmail's own filter the same correction. If you're weighing Gmail's filtering against Apple's more broadly, our side-by-side of Gmail and Apple Mail covers the rest of the differences.

For an iCloud Mail address, Apple's iCloud Mail guide says iCloud catches most spam automatically and moves it to Junk, and that mail from your iCloud contacts or recent conversations doesn't go to Junk. Two details worth knowing: moving a message back to the Inbox stops later mail from that sender being marked as junk, and messages in iCloud's Junk folder are deleted automatically after 30 days. Check it before a month goes by if you're waiting on something.

How to get less spam in the first place

The filter handles what arrives; a few Mac settings and habits reduce how much arrives. These come from Apple's article on reporting and reducing spam:

• Don't open obvious junk. Apple says opening a message can signal to spammers that your address is active. Mark it as junk from the message list.
• Turn on Protect Mail Activity. In Mail > Settings > Privacy, this option masks your IP address and loads remote content privately in the background, per Apple's privacy guide, so images that spammers use to check whether an address is active don't load when you open the message.
• Give out an alias. An iCloud email alias keeps sign-ups off your main address, and with iCloud+, Hide My Email makes random addresses for websites and apps.
• Unsubscribe from lists you joined using the banner's Unsubscribe button, and save Junk for mail you never asked for.

I give a Hide My Email address to any store that wants an email for a one-time receipt. If that address starts getting spam later, I can turn it off without touching my real inbox.

If you use Gmail and your spam problem is really an inbox problem, with real mail you'd rather sort automatically, our list of Gmail automation ideas covers filters that keep the noise out of a Gmail inbox before it reaches your Mac.