Spam Controls and Email Security in TrekMail Webmail

TrekMail filters spam before it reaches your inbox, but no filter is perfect. Sometimes junk slips through, and sometimes a legitimate email ends up in the wrong place. This guide shows you how to correct both situations, block unwanted senders, and understand the security badges that appear on incoming messages.

How spam filtering works

Incoming mail is scanned automatically before it arrives in your inbox. Messages that look like spam are moved to the Junk folder. This happens server-side, before you ever see the message — which means it works even when your email client is not open.

Your actions inside webmail — reporting spam and marking messages as safe — teach the filter and make it more accurate over time for your mailbox specifically.

Reporting spam

If a junk message made it past the filter and landed in your inbox:

1. Select the message in your inbox (click the checkbox next to it, or open it)
2. Click Mark as spam in the toolbar (or right-click the message → Mark as spam)

The message moves to your Junk folder. The system learns from your feedback and becomes better at recognizing similar messages in the future.

Tip: Reporting spam is most useful for messages that genuinely look like spam — unsolicited promotions, phishing attempts, or bulk mail you never signed up for. It is less effective for things like newsletters you forgot you subscribed to; for those, use the unsubscribe link in the email itself.

Rescuing legitimate email from Junk

If a real email ended up in Junk by mistake:

1. Open the Junk folder from the left sidebar
2. Find the message
3. Click Mark as not spam (or right-click → Not spam)

The message moves back to your inbox. The system learns that messages like this one are safe, which reduces the chance of similar emails being incorrectly filtered in the future.

Note: After marking several messages from the same sender as not spam, future messages from them should go straight to your inbox. If a sender's messages keep landing in Junk despite this, check whether they are on your blocked senders list (see below).

Blocking a sender

Blocking a sender automatically sends all future email from that address to Junk, regardless of what the message says.

To block a sender:

1. Open any email from that sender
2. Click More options (⋮) in the message toolbar
3. Select Block sender
4. Confirm

Future emails from that address go directly to Junk. The sender is not notified.

To view and manage your blocked senders list:

1. Go to Settings → Blocked senders
2. You will see a list of all addresses you have blocked
3. To unblock a sender, click the × next to their address

Note: Blocking works per email address. If a spammer sends from multiple addresses, you would need to block each one individually. For pattern-based filtering (for example, blocking all email from a particular domain), use mail filters instead — available on Pro and Agency plans.

External images and trusted senders

By default, TrekMail webmail does not load images that are hosted on external servers. This protects your privacy — loading an external image tells the sender your email address is active and reveals your approximate location.

When a message contains blocked external images, a banner appears at the top:

• Show images once — loads images for this message only, without changing your settings
• Always show from this sender — adds the sender's email address to your trusted senders list; images from this address are shown automatically in all future messages
• Always show from this domain — adds the entire sending domain (for example, newsletter.acme.com) to your trusted senders list; images from any address at that domain are shown automatically

To manage your trusted senders list:

1. Go to Settings → Trusted senders
2. You will see all addresses and domains you have trusted
3. To remove an entry, click the × next to it

Tip: Use "Always show from this domain" for trusted newsletters and services where messages come from different addresses within the same domain. Use "Always show from this sender" when you only want to trust a specific address.

Understanding email trust badges

Next to the sender name on incoming messages, you may see small coloured badges. These indicate whether the email passed three standard authentication checks used across the email industry.

Green badges mean the email passed all checks. Yellow means partial or soft-fail. Red means a check failed.

Important: A green set of badges does not guarantee an email is legitimate — it only means the technical authentication checks passed. Phishing emails can have valid authentication if the attacker controls the sending domain. Always look critically at unexpected requests for sensitive information, passwords, or payments, even from seemingly trusted senders.

A single red badge does not necessarily mean the email is fraudulent. Many small businesses and older sending systems have incomplete or missing authentication. Use the badges as one signal among several, not as the final word.

Viewing the raw message source

If you need to inspect the full technical details of an email — for example, to share with your IT team or verify a suspicious message:

1. Open the message
2. Click More options (⋮) → View source

This opens the complete raw text of the email, including all headers, routing information, and the original message body. It is intended for troubleshooting rather than everyday use.

Printing a message

To print a clean version of a message (without the webmail interface around it):

1. Open the message
2. Click More options (⋮) → Print

A print-formatted view opens in a new window or tab. Use your browser's print function from there.