Gmail moved a good email to the “Spam” label? You marked as junk by mistake? Find out here how to recover mail from “Spam” in Gmail, and how to train the spam filter to boot.
First, Let Your Chickens Come Home to Rest
Midday is a time of rest for chickens, and it is important not to disturb them.
For it is during this period that undisturbed energy is needed to construct the all-important eggshells.
Now, it is not only poultry that needs recovering, of course; at times, emails want to be recovered, too:
How to Recover Email Marked as Spam in Gmail
In a Desktop Browser
Time needed: 2 minutes
To recover a message from the spam label in Gmail using a desktop browser:
- Go to the Spam label in Gmail.
Here’s how: With Gmail keyboard shortcuts enabled, you can press G L, for example, and star typing
spam, then pick the auto-completion to open Spam. - Open the message you want to recover from spam.
Recover multiple messages: You can also check all messages (on the current page) you want to mark as not spam.
No search: While you can, of course, search messages marked as spam (using in:spam in the Gmail search field together with your search terms), you cannot cleanly mark messages as not junk in search results. - Click Not spam in the toolbar.
Alternative: Above each message in Spam, Gmail includes a brief reason why the email is marked junk; you can also click Report not spam there to recover an email.
You have this much time: Gmail permanently deletes emails after about a month in Spam.
In the Gmail App (Android and iPhone)
To save an email from Spam using the Gmail apps for iOS and Android:
- Open the Spam label in the Gmail app.
- Now open the message you want to recover.
Recover more than one: You can also check all messages you want to mark as not junk, of course, in the Spam label’s email list. - Tap the three-dots menu in the top toolbar.
- Select Not spam from the menu that has appeared.
Alternative: If you have opened a message to recover, you can also tap Report not spam.
In an Email Program Using Gmail IMAP
To recover an email from the spam folder in email client that connects to Gmail using IMAP access (and train the spam filter):
- Go to the [Gmail]/Spam folder in your email program.
- Move the email to the Inbox folder.
How to Recover Email Marked as Spam in Gmail: FAQ
What happens when I mark an email not spam in Gmail?
When you mark an email as not spam in the Gmail Spam label,
- Gmail removes the Spam label from the message and
- returns it to the Inbox label while
- leaving other labels untouched.
Can I also remove the label “Spam” to mark as not junk?
Yes.
Removing the Spam label from the message has the same effect for recovering an email as marking it not spam in the Spam folder.
Can I make sure certain emails never go to Gmail’s spam folder?
Yes.
You can set up Gmail to never treat a certain sender’s emails as spam using a filtering rule.
Did Basic HTML Gmail allow me to recover email from Spam?
Yes.
To recover an email from the spam label in Basic HTML Gmail, you would:
- Go to the Spam label.
- Open the email you want to recover.
Recover more than one: You can also check messages in the Spam label’s list. - Click Not Spam in the toolbar.
(How to recover email marked as spam in Gmail tested in a desktop browser and the Gmail app for iOS 6.0; first published November 2021, last updated September 2024)