Handling Junk Email with Apple Mail.app and Gmail

Question

I've just setup my Apple Mail client to work with Google Apps through IMAP. One lingering question is how to best handle SPAM (Junk Mail), however.

In their Help section, Google recommends that we disable junk filtering on the client.

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=78892

This leads me to wonder what we should do when a junk message makes it past Google's filter?

• Do I just delete the message? If I do, the Google spam filter will never improve and "learn" that the message was junk.

• Do I have to log in to the web interface at Google to mark the message as spam? That seems a bit arduous for every spam email I get.

What's the best way to handle this? Thanks!

Answer 1

I believe I may have found my answer:

Achieving Email Bliss with IMAP, Gmail, and Apple Mail, by Joe Kissell.

The article goes into great depth on how Apple Mail and Gmail / Google Apps interact through IMAP, and he has a lot of helpful tips for how to configure both ends of the system for optimal results.

I would highly recommend that anyone who is using Apple's Mail.app to connect with Gmail or Google Apps read this article.

Answer 2

Axeva has the right idea. In short, move spam to the "[Gmail]/Spam" IMAP folder, which is how you mark a message as spam in IMAP-land. Likewise, move messages out of that folder if they're not spam (which is the same as clicking "Not Spam" in the web UI).