How to Whitelist an Email Sender So Their Messages Stop Going to Spam

If messages from someone you trust keep landing in your spam or junk folder, you can whitelist their address so your mail server always treats their emails as safe. Whitelisting overrides your spam filter's scoring for that sender only, so their messages are delivered straight to your inbox instead of being flagged or held back. Common reasons to whitelist a sender include a supplier's invoicing system, a newsletter you subscribed to, or a client whose emails keep getting delayed by an aggressive spam filter.

Before You Whitelist a Sender

Whitelisting works at the level of your hosting account's spam filter, not inside a single email app. If the sender's own domain has a broken or missing SPF, DKIM, or DMARC setup, some of their messages may still get flagged by other mail providers even after you whitelist them locally. If you manage the sending domain yourself, it's worth checking that it's configured correctly first.

In cPanel

1. Log in to cPanel and go to the Email section.
2. Click Spam Filters.
3. Click Additional Configurations (sometimes labeled Configure Apache SpamAssassin).
4. Under Add Rule to Filter List, choose whitelist_from from the dropdown.
5. Enter the sender's full email address (e.g. person@example.com), or to trust an entire domain, enter it with a wildcard (e.g. *@example.com).
6. Click Add Rule to save it.

In DirectAdmin

1. Log in to DirectAdmin and go to the Email section.
2. Click Spam Filters (sometimes labeled Spam Filter Setup).
3. Select the email account or domain you want to update.
4. Open the Whitelist tab.
5. Enter the sender's email address or domain, then click Add.
6. Confirm the change has been saved.

If you only want to whitelist a sender for one mailbox rather than the whole domain, you can usually add the same rule from inside that mailbox's webmail spam settings instead of the control panel.

If Messages Are Still Being Marked as Spam

• Double-check you entered the sender's address correctly, including the exact domain.
• Check your Spam Filters sensitivity setting. A very aggressive setting can still flag some senders even after whitelisting.
• Ask the sender to confirm their domain has valid SPF and DKIM records, since a failed authentication check can outweigh a local whitelist entry on some receiving systems.
• Give it a few minutes: some spam filter changes only apply to mail received after the rule was saved, not messages already in your Spam folder.

For more on setting up outbound email authentication so your own messages don't get flagged as spam by other providers, see How to Set Up SPF and DKIM Records to Stop Your Emails Going to Spam.