That was it.

In the Mercury D configuration the POP3 account information is set up with a default user set to junk. Which I am assuming anything that comes in that is not addressed to a local user then gets sent to the default user.

Thanks for all you help, Ron

I am taking over the administration of our email server. The last IT person has a local user called JUNK. 99% of this mail is really junk but sometimes there is something that was either sent to an old (now deleted) user or for some other reason was directed to this user. I can only assume either the IT person would scroll through these to look for anything that may be real from time to time or when someone would ask him to check on an email that they we expecting.

My question is how is this email getting to the user JUNK? There are no Aliases set up, no filtering rules (global or general). For example we get real emails from "comanyaaa.com" and it appears on old user had a subscription to a forum and these emails end up in going to user JUNK. I searched though the manual and didn't that there was anything special for user JUNK. Are these emails coming from content control and or spamhalter?

We are using Mercury32 4.74 with modules S,P,E,D.

Thanks for any help in learning to use this program, Ron

It looks like the Junk folder is where spam is being deposited with some false detections mixed in.  This is normal as no spam filter is 100% accurate.  Your predecessor was probably routinely reviewing the contents of this folder check for false detections. 

If Spamwall is the spam filter then it should be tagging the message with a prefix to the subject (default is "SPAM?") and should be adding a header (default header is "X-Spamhalter:").  A filter is then used to detect the existence of either one of these and divert to the Junk folder. 

If Content Control is active then it should be adding a header like X-UC-Weight and/or X-AC-Weight.  Content Control has its own configurable action (instead of a filter) which you can see by using the edit button to look at the details of the Content Control definition.  It's in the Action tab.

Hint:  Global rules can be be used in Mercury to discard unwanted messages so that you don't have to deal with them at all.  I filter on the subject line for vulgar words and a variety of other content.

Hint 2:  You can make your life easier when reviewing the Junk folder by creating a filter set of rules that deletes known junk.  This filter set can be configured as a folder-open filter so that it activates each time you review the folder contents.  My rule set is very extensive and auto-deletes about 30% of the junk without fear of deleting false positives.

I use this combination because it is easier for me to add a new rule to my filter set in Pegasus Mail than it is to add one to my filter set in Mercury.

I am almost there. This is how I understand what is going on.

Between your explanation and looking at the header the email gets marked as spam/junk by spamhalter. When I log into the email client (roundcube in our case) for the user it sees that this email was marked as spam/junk and places into the junk folder.

So the local user "junk" has nothing to do with this and from looking around this user may not me getting used for anything at this time. It may have been an old loose that was never removed?

I would like to get confirmation on why the user is getting the spam so when I need to I can change it. The user is listed as the postmaster in the mercury core module configuration. Is that why spam emails go to this user or is it set somewhere else?

If I have misunderstood how this is working please let me know.

Definitely learning more each day but jumping in way over your head and then trying to figuring out things after someone that has done this stuff for years is not the easiest way to do things.

Thanks again for all you help, Ron

> Between your explanation and looking at the header the email gets marked
> as spam/junk by spamhalter. When I log into the email client (roundcube in
> our case) for the user it sees that this email was marked as spam/junk and
> places into the junk folder.

Are using roundcube to connect to the mailbox of user "Junk" or are you in the mailbox of a different user and seeing spam in a folder label Junk? 

If connected to mailbox of user "Junk" then there must be a filter in Mercury that is directing spam tagged messages to Junk.  If there was no filter then all spam tagged messages would be distributed to recipient mailboxes just like any other message.

If connected to another users mailbox and seeing spam in a Junk folder then perhaps there is a server side rule in Roundcube the is filtering spam tagged messages to the Junk folder.  Otherwise it would be in the New mail folder.

> So the local user "junk" has nothing to do with this and from looking
> around this user may not me getting used for anything at this time. It may
> have been an old loose that was never removed?

You can use Windows Explorer to look inside of the "Junk" mailbox directory and see if there are any current files with a .cnm extension.  If so then it is an active mailbox as far as Mercury is concerned.  Not having any .cnm files does not in itself mean that it is not active.  Filtering new messages into folders removes the .cnm files (.cnm files are mail message files not yet placed in a folder (visible as new mail)).

> I would like to get confirmation on why the user is getting the spam so
> when I need to I can change it. The user is listed as the postmaster in
> the mercury core module configuration. Is that why spam emails go to this
> user or is it set somewhere else?

I don't think it has anything to do with the user being the postmaster but can't say that with 100% certainty. 

Client is checking mail for user junk.

I scrolled through about a weeks worth of emails in the junk folder and everyone was sent to an invalid user (either made up, misspelled, or old one that no longer exists). I can only assume that this was setup to catch the misspelled or old user. May have originally been set up to catch "no recipient" emails as we used to have a lot of problems with incoming BCC emails.

One thing I still can not figure out is how the messages are getting to user junk? Watching the screen I can see the POP3 client and core process send messages to user junk. There are no filters and no aliases. I can't find any setting that would say "send to user junk". Is local user junk special in that if mercury/32 or spamhalter sees that a there is a local user called junk it automatically sends certain kinds of emails there? I need to understand how this is working so when needed I can make changes.

It could be that the mail host you are POP3ing from is configured with a catch-all mailbox. MercuryD would then have account configured that would retrieve mail from this mailbox and logically place it in the local Junk mailbox.  This configuration would found in the list of POP3 accounts located in the MercuryD configuration.  Look for any that have the Junk mailbox set as the Local address.