Giving up on gmail?

[Anonymous]

My gmail account has suddenly stopped receiving messages from certain people/organizations. It started with one particular org’s server, but now it is lots of people. Messages aren’t in spam or muted. Has anyone else had this issue? Should I just give up on gmail? Alternatives?

[Anonymous]

This sounds like a spam filtering issue or else a mis-configured server on the other end.

You can look at http://mxtoolbox.com/ for some troubleshooting information. The sending site should have proper MX records, SPF records, DKIM signing, and DMARC records in order to best ensure delivery. Note that this doesn't tend to work properly for mailing lists (Listserv, etc.), as those standards do not fully cover such uses. Their mail server also should be in an IP address block that is not on any of the major blacklists for being abused.

If you want to move away from Gmail, pretty much any ISP will happily sell you an email account with IMAP and/or web client access for a few dollars per month. I've used http://www.panix.com/ for many years (I have no connection with them...I just like them), but they pretty much all will provide this service. Some have configurable anti-spam filters, which may help your situation.

(I'm a recovering former mail admin, so I know this problem all too well. The trick was always to balance the false-positive spam blackholing with the need for efficient mail delivery. The unfortunate thing is that email was more reliable in 1995 than it is today, now that the spammers have ruined it.)