When users report spam in 3rd party email apps, does the complaint reach the mailbox provider?

Email marketer from EmailToolTester explains that 3rd party email clients can collect spam reports and send that to the mailbox provider. So if a user uses Apple mail on their Gmail account, the spam reports may be sent to Google.

Email marketer from HubSpot explains that maintaining a clean email list and regularly removing inactive or disengaged subscribers can help reduce spam complaints. Sending emails only to users who actively want to receive them lowers the likelihood of being marked as spam and improves sender reputation.

Email marketer from Neil Patel's Blog explains that Feedback Loops (FBLs) are a mechanism used by mailbox providers like Gmail or Yahoo to provide senders with data about spam complaints originating from their users. When a user marks an email as spam, the mailbox provider can send a report back to the sender's email service provider (ESP), helping them identify and address issues that might be causing their emails to be marked as spam.

Email marketer from Mailjet responds that spam complaints significantly impact sender reputation. High complaint rates can lead to emails being automatically directed to the spam folder or even blocked by mailbox providers. Maintaining a low spam complaint rate is crucial for ensuring high deliverability.

Email marketer from Litmus shares that Apple Mail allows users to report spam directly from the app. When a user marks an email as spam, Apple uses this data to improve its filtering mechanisms. It is also likely, although less transparent, that Apple shares some of this data with mailbox providers to contribute to broader spam detection efforts.

Email marketer from Reddit shared that best practice is to use a service such as AWS SES that takes care of it for you. They also mentioned that you will need to setup DNS records to verify the domain and help with preventing spam.

Email marketer from StackOverflow shares that the best solution is to handle bounces, which includes spam reports. They say that one should setup the infrastructure so one receives bounces and processes them. Otherwise emails will continue to bounce and one's reputation will be hurt.

Email marketer from SendPulse shares that mailbox providers analyze spam reports to refine their filtering algorithms. If a significant number of users mark emails from a particular sender as spam, the mailbox provider is likely to start directing emails from that sender to the spam folder automatically for other users, even if they haven't explicitly marked those emails as spam.

Expert from Word to the Wise shares that the majority of spam reporting happens within the webmail interfaces of providers like Gmail or Yahoo. However, some third-party email clients (like Outlook or Apple Mail) also offer spam reporting functionality. Whether these third-party reports directly impact the provider depends on the integration and agreements between the app and the provider. Some may, others may not.

Expert from Email Geeks mentions that some mail services watch for IMAP moves to and from a junk folder and take some action based on that, but those moves are often _not_ triggered by the user, so it’s not really a reliable source of data.

Expert from Spam Resource explains that having complaint rates that exceed 0.1% will cause delivery problems, the emails can be delivered to the junk folder or blocked completely.

Expert from Email Geeks explains that in general, marking a mail as spam in a desktop client will have no effect outside of moving the mail to a junk folder and updating the mail client's local spam filtering because there's not really any standard protocol to do much more.

Expert from Email Geeks states that FBL reports are a courtesy; almost all mail services do not send them.

Expert from Email Geeks shares that if the mail client and the mail service it’s logged in to are run by the same people then they will likely be more tightly integrated, and that will trigger whatever the mail service does for spam reports (server side filtering, metrics, reporting, FBL reports etc.).

Expert from Email Geeks says there is a gap *everywhere* at reporting spam complaints and to treat reports as trends rather than absolutes.

Expert from Spam Resource explains that complaints are registered via feedback loops (FBLs), which forward the complaints back to the sender. Senders then use this information to remove complaining users from their lists.

Documentation from Google Support explains that when a user marks an email as spam in Gmail, Google uses this information to improve its spam filters. This helps Gmail identify and block similar emails in the future, protecting users from unwanted or malicious content. This feedback also contributes to the sender's reputation; a high spam complaint rate can negatively impact future deliverability.

Documentation from Yahoo support shares that reporting spam helps improve Yahoo's spam filters. It reduces the volume of unsolicited emails. The spam filter automatically learns from user input.

Documentation from Microsoft Support explains that in Outlook, when a user reports an email as junk, it is moved to the Junk Email folder. Additionally, Microsoft uses this information to learn and improve its junk email filters. The reporting of spam helps Microsoft identify and block similar messages in the future, improving the overall user experience.

Documentation from RFC describes the Abuse Reporting Format (ARF), a standard format for reporting email abuse, including spam. When a user reports an email as spam, the email client can generate an ARF report and send it to a designated email address (often abuse@domain.com) for analysis and action.