Spam filters in cPanel (SpamAssassin and Spam Box)

cPanel email includes Apache SpamAssassin™, which checks every incoming message and gives it a spam score. You decide what happens to messages that score too high.

Turn on spam filtering

1. Log in to cPanel and open Spam Filters under Email.
2. Turn on Process New Emails and Mark them as Spam. Messages that look like spam get ***SPAM*** added to the subject.

Send spam to a separate folder (Spam Box)

1. In Spam Filters, turn on Move New Spam to a Separate Folder (Spam Box).
2. Spam now goes to the spam folder in each mailbox instead of the inbox.

Check the spam folder now and then for real messages that were caught by mistake. To empty it, click Configure Spam Box Settings and then Empty Spam Box for each account.

Delete obvious spam automatically

Turn on Automatically Delete New Spam (Auto-Delete) and set a threshold. A score of 5 or higher is a good starting point for deleting obvious spam. Messages that are deleted can’t be recovered, so only use this once you’re happy with how the filter behaves.

Make the filter stricter or looser

Click Spam Threshold Score:

• Lower number = stricter. More spam is caught, but more real emails may be too.
• Higher number = looser. Fewer real emails are caught, but more spam gets through.

The default of 5 suits most people.

Allow or block specific senders

Under Additional Configurations:

• Whitelist (Edit Spam Whitelist Settings): senders who should never be marked as spam, for example boss@partner.com or *@partner.com.
• Blacklist (Edit Spam Blacklist Settings): senders who should always be marked as spam.

For more control, such as deleting messages from certain senders or with certain words, see Configuring email filtering in cPanel and Filtering incoming email by IP address.

Other spam protection

• Greylisting delays first-time senders, which blocks a lot of spam. See Greylisting in cPanel.
• Ruachost Business Email includes its own antimalware and antiphishing protection, managed separately.