How to Set Spam Emails to Auto-Delete or Move to a Separate Folder Instead of Your Inbox

By default, your spam filter usually just adds a tag to a suspicious email's subject line and still delivers it to your main inbox. If you'd rather flagged spam never reached your inbox at all, either deleted outright or moved into its own folder, you can change this in your control panel's spam filter settings.

Choose the Right Setting for Your Situation

Before turning this on, weigh the two options:

• Moving spam to a separate folder lets you glance through it occasionally to catch anything wrongly flagged.
• Auto-deleting spam keeps your inbox cleanest, but a wrongly flagged (false positive) message is gone for good.

If you receive quotes, orders, or other important messages from senders you don't recognize yet, moving flagged mail to a separate folder is usually safer than deleting it outright. Check that folder every so often.

In cPanel

1. Log in to cPanel and open Spam Filters under the Email section.
2. Make sure spam filtering is Enabled for your domain.
3. Open Additional Configurations.
4. To move flagged mail out of your inbox without deleting it, turn on Spam Box. Messages identified as spam are then delivered to a separate "Spam" folder in webmail instead of your inbox.
5. To delete flagged mail outright instead, turn on Automatically Delete New Messages Identified as Spam. Only use this if you're confident in your spam score settings, since deleted messages can't be recovered.
6. Click Save.

In DirectAdmin

1. Log in to DirectAdmin and open Email, then Spam Filters (sometimes labeled Spam Settings, depending on your version).
2. Select the email account or domain you want to configure.
3. Look for the delivery action applied to messages that score above your spam threshold. Choose the option to deliver flagged mail to a separate spam folder rather than the inbox, or the option to discard it, depending on what your setup offers.
4. Save your changes.
5. If your account doesn't show a delete or spam-folder option directly in the spam filter settings, you can get the same result with a mail filter rule that matches on the spam score header and moves or deletes the message.

Once you've decided how flagged spam should be handled, you may also want to adjust how aggressively messages get flagged in the first place. See How to Enable SpamAssassin and Adjust Its Sensitivity.