[Alpine-info] does Alpine have a white listing process?

[Lucio Chiappetti via Alpine-info]

On Sun, 17 Aug 2025, Karen Lewellen via Alpine-info wrote:


> I have a gmail address set to forward to another email I can actually 

> reach.


For reasons most likely different from yours, I have a similar 
arrangement, i.e. my work Gsuite ("enterprise" gmail) mail is forwarded to 
another provider, from where it is fetched via fetchmail and accessed 
locally by alpine.


> Recently though some important emails have fallen prey to google's

> filtering system.


Please define "fallen prey". With respect to our earlier arrangement 
before gmail (mail handled locally with institution-customized 
spamassassin) it appears that we have more false positives and negatives, 
and also a different pattern of received spam.

As far as I can see for a mail coming into a gmail address which is 
forwarded to a third party address one can have:

1) message is DISCARDED silently when entering gmail (if this happens,
    one can not tell, but if it does it should be for true spam)

2) message is delivered in gmail Spam folder (true spam or false
    positives)

3) message is delivered in gmail inbox and forwarded to the third
    party, and a coipy is stored in gmail Bin

4) message received from third party delivered in its spam folder

5) message delivered in third party inbox

Personally I get cases 5 and also rare 4 automatically via fetchmail every 
5 minutes, and my alpine sees them as local mail.

Instead once a day I access case 2 via alpine and Save the occasional 
false positive to my local INBOX. I leave real spam there hoping "it 
learns". Also once per day I access  case 3 Bin and delete-and-expunge its 
entire content.

Both fetchmail an alpine access gmail via an app password.


> I am wondering if alpine itself has a process for whitelisting 

> addresses?


Maybe, I do not know, as I impkememnt whitelisting at fetchmi/promcail 
level i.e. before alpine.

But I doubt you could whitelist addresses in stages 1/2 BEFORE alpine 
enters in the track.

If your case is stage 2 (false positive), you can define a folder 
collection in alpine for all gmail folders except its inbox via
M S L defing as collection with

Server    : imap.gmail.com:993/ssl/notls/user=whatever
Path      : [Gmail]/

For reasons unclear to me that views all gmail folders (I have only the 
standard ones, and only Spam and Bin aere populated)

To access gmail inbox I define in M S C in the Incoming Folders a folder
Gsuite {imap.gmail.com:993/ssl/novalidate-cert/notls/user=whatever}

De facto in my current arrangement such inbix empties almost 
instantaneously (except that all stuff is copied to gmail Bin)

I have also similar arrangements (a folder collection, and an incoming 
folder inbox) also for my third party. In principle I could use such 
incoming folder to check mail "in transit" during the 5 min before it is 
fetched (I do that for form-authorization messages). For me the third 
party folder collectio is always empty because fetchmail gets both the inbox 
and spam (stages 4/5 above i.e. occasional few false positives)


So one can do everything (manually) within alpine (but stage 1 assumed it 
exists). The only "disadvantage" is that an L command within alpine needs 
to access all folder collections, so needs all the passwords (app password 
for gmail),  but they can be saved via the master password mechanism in 
alpine).

Hope this helps somehow

-- 
Lucio Chiappetti - INAF/IASF - via Corti 12 - I-20133 Milano (Italy)
For more info : http://www.iasf-milano.inaf.it/~lucio/personal.html
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