---
title: The Spam Filter
description: "The spam filter is a blocklist of email addresses. Any inbound message from an address on the list is discarded before it can become a ticket or a reply. It is deliberately simple: exact addresses only, no patterns, no domains,…"
url: "https://rackhelm.com/documentation/support-spam-filter/"
updated: "2026-09-24"
category: Support Desk
---

# The Spam Filter

The spam filter is a blocklist of email addresses. Any inbound message from an address on the list is discarded before it can become a ticket or a reply. It is deliberately simple: exact addresses only, no patterns, no domains, no scoring.

## Before you start

> **Note:** **Support → Spam Filter** is gated by the `edit_company_settings` permission, which the built-in Administrator role does not hold — so on a fresh install it is Super Admin only. The sidebar link is likewise shown only to Super Admin; if you have granted the permission to another role and the menu entry is missing, go straight to `/admin/spam-emails`. See [Roles & Permissions](/docs/roles-and-permissions/).

## What the filter actually does

The blocklist is consulted at exactly one point: when the inbound mail importer picks a message off a mailbox. If the message's From address is on the list, the message is logged as blocked and dropped — no ticket is created, no reply is appended, no autoresponder is sent. The message is still deleted from or moved out of the mailbox by the route's post-processing setting, so it does not pile up.

> **Warning:** The filter applies to [inbound email routes](/docs/email-routing-imap-piping/) only. It does not stop a signed-in customer opening a ticket in the client portal, and it does not stop the public contact form. Blocking an address is not a way to bar someone with an account from contacting you.

Matching is on the exact address. `spammer@example.com` does not block `spammer+new@example.com`, and there is no way to block a whole domain.

## Blocking an address

![The Spam Filter screen showing the blocked count, a search box and a table of blocked addresses with dates](/wp-content/uploads/rackhelm-docs/support-spam-filter.png)
The blocklist, newest additions first, 50 to a page.

There are two ways in.

### From this screen

1. Open **Support → Spam Filter**.
2. Press **Block email**.
3. Enter the address. It must be a valid email address and must not already be on the list.
4. Press **Block email** in the modal.

### From a ticket

On an open ticket, **Mark as spam** adds the ticket owner's email address to this list *and* closes the ticket in one action. It requires `close_tickets` and membership of the ticket's department. The confirmation prompt names the address that is about to be blocked — read it before you accept.

> **Warning:** **Mark as spam** is global. It blocks that address for every department and every mailbox, not only the one you work in, and it does so silently — the sender gets no bounce and no autoresponder, so a mistake here looks to the customer like you are ignoring them. If the ticket is merely unwanted rather than spam, close it instead.

## Reviewing and unblocking

| Control | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| **Find address…** | Partial match on the address. Useful for checking whether a complaining customer is on the list. |
| **blocked** badge | The total number of addresses on the list, regardless of the current search. |
| **Date added** | Relative time; hover for the exact timestamp. |
| **Remove** | Unblocks a single address, with a confirmation prompt. |
| Row checkboxes + **Remove selected** | Unblocks several at once. |

Removing an address takes effect on the next poll. It does not resurrect anything that was already discarded — blocked messages are not stored anywhere, so there is nothing to recover.

> **Tip:** Search this list first whenever a customer says "I emailed you and heard nothing". An address blocked months ago by a well-meaning agent is one of the more common causes.

## What this filter is not

RackHelm has no content scoring, no Bayesian filter, no rate limiting per sender and no domain rules. It is a manual blocklist for individuals who have made themselves a nuisance. Genuine spam volume should be handled where it belongs — on the mail server that hosts the support mailbox, with the usual tools — so that RackHelm never sees it.

> **Note:** Separately from this list, RackHelm quarantines inbound mail whose sender your mail server could not authenticate, filing it under an **[UNVERIFIED SENDER]** subject rather than attributing it to a customer. That is a forgery control rather than a spam control, and it is described in [Email routing and IMAP piping](/docs/email-routing-imap-piping/).

## Troubleshooting

| Symptom | Cause and fix |
| --- | --- |
| A customer's emails never arrive | Search the blocklist for their address and remove it. |
| A blocked sender still gets tickets in | They are using a different address, or they are signed in to the client portal — the filter only covers inbound email. |
| "The email has already been taken" | The address is already on the list. |
| Marking as spam returned "Could not find a valid email address for this user." | The ticket's owner record has no email address. Block the address by hand from this screen. |
| Blocked mail is filling the mailbox | The route's post-processing is not deleting or moving messages. See [Email routing and IMAP piping](/docs/email-routing-imap-piping/). |