We all get e-mail, all of us. In the past twenty to thirty years we have seen it transform from a nifty and new thing to a commonly used method of communication. That being said, there are still some chances that some email that you need will get caught up in your junk folder. It could be that someone sent an e-mail attachment that your security system didn’t agree with, or it could be that the sender uses an e-mail they haven’t before. In either case, some e-mails that you wouldn’t consider junk could end up on the junk pile anyway.
I was dealing with a client a few months ago, and they were having an issue with some of their e-mails. The problem quite specifically was that some of the emails that they had received from a specific person were not in their inbox. I had encountered this issue before, so I was happy to help. What had happened in this particular case was that someone had sent her an e-mail with content that the Spam filter on her computer didn’t like. So it automatically sent the e-mail to the junk folder. If this has ever happened to you, don’t fret. It’s a fairly common occurrence.
1) Always check your junk mail folder – This will depend on how high your security filters on your email are, but if you get an e-mail from someone who sends you an attachment or a link or something that your filters hasn’t seen before, they may junk that particular e-mail. If you have not received an e-mail from a person or a company before then, it’s entirely possible that it will go to your junk folder. To make sure that you don’t miss anything you need to know both what is coming in and be able to keep an eye on your junk mail folder if your e-mail goes where you need to make sure that you can get it moved to your Inbox.
2) Right-click, mark as safe – if you know you’re going to be receiving email from a specific person or service (or say, perhaps, your favourite blog) what you can do is right click (of CTL Click for my Mac readers) on an e-mail from them and there will be an option to mark that particular as “safe”. This will ensure that any e-mails you receive from that particular person or company will always come to your inbox and not get sent to your junk mail by accident.
3) Keep monitoring – Unfortunately, while the “marking as safe” system works 99% of the time, it’s always possible that one will get sent to your junk folder. The easiest way to fix this would be to check your junk folder every once and a while and make sure that you haven’t missed any e-mails. If you do this enough, you will find that all the emails you want to get will find their way into your inbox. This is not a major undertaking. Keeping an eye on your junk mail folder can be something that you do once a month.
In the end, it’s important to ensure that you are getting all the emails that you are supposed to be getting. As email is one of the most used methods of communication, ensuring that you get the ones you want to get (like notifications that you’re favourite Tech blog has new posts) is a top priority that we all need to pay attention to. Checking your Junk folder and ensuring that the mail you want goes to your inbox is something that we all need to do to keep our mailbox (and Junk folder for that matter) in order.
How often do you go through your junk folder?
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