Gmail’s spam filter and automatic sorting are broken

Jan 25, 2026 12:54 AM - 1 month ago 50918

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Users’ inboxes person been flooded pinch promotional emails and warnings to “be careful.”

Users’ inboxes person been flooded pinch promotional emails and warnings to “be careful.”

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Jan 24, 2026, 5:54 PM UTC

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acastro_STK459_09

Image: Alex Castro / The Verge

Terrence O'Brien

is the Verge’s play editor. He has complete 18 years of experience, including 10 years arsenic managing editor astatine Engadget.

Some Gmail users person noticed that promotional emails that usually spell to their ain siloed tab person started flooding their inbox. Reports person been hitting the Google forums and Reddit that messages are bypassing the Updates and Promotional filters and going consecutive to Gmail inboxes. Some are besides reporting seeing a banner astatine the apical of immoderate messages informing them to “be observant pinch this message,” explaining that it hasn’t been afloat scanned for spam aliases malware.

Google acknowledged the issue, posting connected the Workspace Status Dashboard:

Gmail users mightiness spot banners indicating missing spam checks.We are experiencing an rumor pinch Gmail opening connected Saturday, 2026-01-24 05:02 US/Pacific. Users mightiness acquisition the pursuing banner: “Be observant pinch this message. Gmail hasn’t scanned this connection for spam, unverified senders, aliases harmful software.”We counsel the users to beryllium other diligent successful lieu of missing spam checks. Our engineering squad is investigating the issue. We will supply an update by Saturday, 2026-01-24 09:30 pinch existent details.

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