Hello all, dear users of Gmail.

Do you get more and more spam in your Gmail *inbox* recently?

I mean, everyday, I get at least 10 or 15 non-caught-by-spam-filter spams. And I'm obliged to check my spambox in detail because I fear of false-positive spams – yes, dudes, shit happens...

In short:
- it seems Gmail is unable to filter dumb spam (e.g.: title & content with words "enlarge penis")
- it is unable to filter the type of mails that everyday I "report as spam", which begins with "hello, my name is XXX, I'm the son/daughter/sister/nephew of the dead president/minister of [insert African country name here]".

I can say if a mail is spam or not just by reading the 3 first words (without open the mail). Why the Gmail spam filter is unable to do that???? And do you think the "report spam" button is really useful or is it only a way for moving the mail into spam directory?
I ask the question here because it seems Googlers have forgotten what is the URL for official Gmail group on Google Groups. Not desperates users.
http://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Help-Discussion

I also often wonder why they can't filter the seemingly obvious spam. On the other hand, sometimes when you might think a solution is obvious it may also cause false positivies. For instance, imagine you had sent the above via email to me – you mentioned a lot of "spammy" words in your mail because you talked about spam, and I might have thus never seen your mail (not to say that such a mail would get through to the inbox in Gmail right now).

Of course – and that's why I hope spam filter is customized for each Gmail account.
But Gmail which is unable to filter the "your paypal account has been deleted" mail from @xxxx.hu, sorry but it sucks.

I so wish that Google not only filters the incoming messages, but also scan the current inbox messages against the reported spam.

Is it so complicated to filter mail from people who "offer us $16,800,000 USD" ?

Maybe because some spammers were able to break the CAPTCHA? ;)

http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1418

My Inbox do get obvious spam from time to time and it is annoying. Gmail's filter is rather impressive compared to Hotmail's block it all system ..

I assume it's because you check your mail regularly, presumably once you and a couple of other quick-to-flag-as-spam users flag it, users who check their inbox at a later date will have these messages correctly filtered.

But yes, I too have noticed increasing levels of spam reaching my inbox.

I've been getting more spam in my inbox as well.

and most of them are incredibly obvious.

Today, at 06:00 AM, I've received a (French) spam in my inbox.
I've flagged it as spam, with the button, even without open it because you can see it is a spam just by reading the five first words.

At noon, I got in my inbox exactly the same spam, from the same sender, the content header is the same, except the hour of emission & reception. Flagged as spam too.

This night, third spam.... and still not filtered.

Google had a antispam team? Oh yes, they are playing with Lively now, I assume they can't really work.

I get an average of about 15-30 spam messages a day, and almost every one are perfectly identified and sent to the spam folder. I probably only get one in the inbox about once or twice a month at the most. Compared to my Bellsouth (ATT) account, Gmail's spam detection is incredible. I have the email from the ATT account sent to Gmail and it identifies nearly every spam email from that account as well.

As far as false positives, I can't remember the last time a legit email ended up in the spam folder.

I can't believe it doesn't catch even the obvious spam msgs for some people. I don't think its ever let one of them into my inbox. I'm actually surprised now when I see one in the inbox now.

Sometimes when I scan quickly thru the spam folder before deleting all messages, I will open some msgs that look legit, but really aren't. I simply have never had a bad experience with it at all (with multiple gmail accts). So I don't understand why other people seem to get the same type of spam in their inbox when I don't.

"As far as false positives, I can't remember the last time a legit email ended up in the spam folder."
Do you check your spambox at least 1 time every 30 days? If you don't, you will not find false-positives because they will have been deleted.

Oh, by the way, I've just received a spam from PAYPAL in my INBOX. From updateaccountspay.com ...

72 spams in the last 18 hours, including 2 false positives.
Gmail: FAIL.

Is it just me, or did spam just decrease in the past 5-7 days?

or... maybe the spammers are out camping

TOMHTML

Yes, I review it about 1-2x a week. Checking right now, I have 29 spam messages – all are definitely spam. None in my inbox. I did find a single one in my inbox last week though – the first in a few weeks. I may have hit the "Report spam" button a dozen times since I created the account a couple of years ago.

Some others I know that use Gmail have absolutely no problems with spam either – and are actually really happy about how good it is. I really am quite surprised to hear so many on this board that have issues with it. In general, I don't read much about others having any serious issues with it either. I usually read articles/comments that are very positive about the spam filter.

So, I still don't understand how it can filter so well on some accounts but not on others – ASSUMING its the same exact type of email spam of course. I can't imagine why it might use different rules and filters for different accounts.

I hope it has different rules for different accounts: one mail might be a spam for you and not for me, and vice-versa. :)

I am just referring to the spam that is dead obvious to anyone who see's it – the ones that are usually received several times a day. But I can understand why something I report as spam might not be to someone else. I'm wondering if maybe the customized portion of the filtering gets conflicted for some accounts. Maybe an email that matched a certain identification pattern or footprint was reported as spam by the user on one occasion, but not reported at a different time. Would the custom filter rules cancel each other out or one takes precedence over the other? Maybe that's why it doesn't work well for some, but works great for others.

I'm wondering if they could add a "Spam Filter Reset Button" feature that would delete any custom rules a user might have and give them the basic filter rules that apply when an account is first opened.

Spam is so hilarious, today I got this one "John Mccain Eats A Bug"

and more...
"Illegal Immigrants Seize Control Of The U.S."
"No dollars anymore"
"Firefighter shot dead by home-owners while fighting fire"
"US Olympians body-searched at China Customs"
"Ican To Shut Down Email Services World Wide"
"Angelina Jolie gives birth to triplets"

These would make great headlines;)

I got "Unbelievable! Tom Cruise is not gay!" few days ago :)

Bob : it would be nice if a Google employee & Gmail team member could come here and give us some details.
How could I contact Gmail Team? ((please don't answer "google groups"))

Looking in the spam box, I see these:
"No human part is stronger longer"
"Barack Obama Wins Ku Klux Klan Endorsement"
"Grass party starts here"

I'm noticing much more spam for watches now too. The other 3 major categories of spam that fill up in there are: v.iagara, pharmacy and cheap college degrees. I don't really care about these though since they are always identified correctly as spam and don't clutter my inbox.

TOM, I would also like to hear from someone in the know and have them chime in here. Of course realizing they cannot reveal too much about their Super Secret Spicy Spam Sauce®, but it would be nice to try and understand why the accuracy varies so much for some accounts.

Hey, Matt Cutts, throw us a bone here...anything you can add to this thread would be great!

Bob I think Matt works on spam in web search results but not email spam, or ... ?