Apple's Spam Filter just creates double work

The spam filter does not use:

• The sender’s email address, which is ALWAYS faked for spam, so there’s no point in blocking it
• The content of the message

What it DOES use is metadata in the message header that you don’t normally see, including SPF, DMARC, DKIM and other authentication data that legitimate senders include in their header metadata, that can be back traced to the sending server’s DNS zone file. If it fails any authentication data it goes to junk.

Senders who are listed in any of over a dozen spam databases such as SPAMHAUS also are sent to the junk folder. And if you have any spam filtering apps such as NOMOROBO, mail that is in their blacklist also go to the junk folder.

What may also go to junk is messages that are legitimate and pass the authentication tests, but have either images that don’t authenticate, or the email address is not in your Contacts (the only time it uses email address, and only if all other authentication passes).

I open my inbox. I click on junk mail to send dozens and dozens of emails there./

Now I open Junk Mail. I have to send dozens of good emails back.

Why are you doing that? You should send emails you think are Junk to Junk and the Junk mail filter might have some ability to learn. It sounds like you are sending legitimate emails to Junk, then moving them back. Why?

If you are thinking that the sender will be marked as a "spammer," that is not so. The "sender" is faked. The Junk mail filter knows this.

What's the purpose of having. second folder if I can't mark a sender as legitimate, or another sender as a spammer?

By default, if the sender is in your Contacts, then it is trusted.

By moving it to Junk, the filter may learn that the sender is not legitimate through other means, but the sender will likely not be the same the next time.

Selecting block does nothing but mark it blocked.

Yes. See below.

HOW does this help anyone? I want to click on spam and have them NEVER email me again. I want it to know that someone is legitimate and not make me serachg for it elsewhere.

That's not possible.

First, the email address is most likely faked. The same spammer will send another message with a different sender. you can't win that whack-a-mole game.

Second, your email service provider would have to provide any Block to prevent messages from getting to your email account. I don't know if any email providers would provide such a service. Seems like a lot of overhead.

Is it me? Am I doing something wrong?

Not sure, but it sounds like you think it works entirely different than how it does work. Same-same for your understanding of spam email.

Why no whitelist?

The "whitelist" is your contacts.

How does mail from people that I mail to daily end up in spam?

Is "Trust Junk Mail headers in messages" enabled? An email message does not travel directly from the sender to the receiver. It may end up sitting on several email servers (mail exchangers) en-route to you. Those servers may decide the message looks like spam and mark it as such with an X-Spam header. If you have that setting enabled, the Junk mail filter will believe that above all else.

And, finally, the Mail/iCloud Junk Mail filter is not the best in the world. If you don't like how it works, turn it off and install something else.

I opened the spam folder to double check. I move items back to the IN bod that the spam filter placed there incorrectly. No matter how many times I move the item back to IN, the filter does not learn the sender is legitimate.

As I tried to explain, the sender is not how a spam filter works. The sender email address is always faked in Spam, so filtering based on it will be fruitless.

Likewise,mail stays in my IN folder that I move to spam multiple times.

That sounds like a server problem. Are you using Gmail or a derivative?

I do appreciate feedback about what I may have done in error, but you've created a scenario and then reacted to that scenario. I don't even begin to know how to react.

Neither do I. I just tried to explain how it works. It seems you think it works differently than it actually does. There isn’t any instant gratification with the built-in spam filter. It will take a long time to learn, and it will never “learn” a sender. It can override the known senders in your Contacts, if you have it set to trust spam headers.