Invisible outbound emails

[[email protected]]

I'm running a MacBook Pro and OSX 10.5.8. Recently I started noticing that, when I sent an email (often the first of the day) the Mac email program would indicate that two messages were being transmitted. Yet, when I checked my "Sent" folder, only one message (the one I intended) was shown as having been sent.

I'm wondering if this might be an indication that I've picked up a worm or trojan horse virus.

Does anyone out there have any advice for me on how I can determine what program is initiating the invisible email, and/or how to stop it?

Thanks,
GS

 

[Egidio]

GS,

Unrelated to your question, I'd like to suggest you try to have a user name that is not your email address. Spammers love to harvest emails that way.

As for your specific question, take a look at your Mail settings. Are there any bcc copies set up to run? What type of mail are you using, POP or IMAP? Any filters set up in your mail account?

 

[[email protected]]

Egidio,

Thanks for your response. I'm set up as a POP account. I seldom use BCC for email responses. Certainly the email messages in question have been "person to person" and not BCC to multiple addresses. If there's a way to set up a "global" or default BCC I'm not aware of it, but I'll look at the settings. Yes, I have spam filters activated. I've wondered if some application I've enabled is sending messages back to corporate HQ (benign but irritating). In the worst case it could be a key logger capturing my online banking passwords, etc. The trouble is, I can't see where that second message is going. There must be some way of capturing header info on outgoing emails, but I don't have the expertise to view that, since my "sent" messages indicate one message sent, but the realtime outgoing data indicates two messages are being transmitted. Again, I'll really appreciate any help you can provide. Thanks, George.

 

[Egidio]

I know Thunderbird allows for a BCC automatically added. I'm not sure Apple Mail has that feature. I can't see it in Mail.

Since you're using POP, creating a new account could be troublesome because you'd lose what you have already downloaded.

One odd thing I see is that you said that the problem only appears with the first message of the day. So, after that you only see one email being sent? Have you tried sending that first email and have the Activity window open? It's in Window > Activity.

 

[[email protected]]

Egidio,

I see nothing in Mail Preferences that would generate multiple messages. I checked my anti-spam filters and notice that I have two anti-spam programs running; Avast! and "Persoal anti-spam". This was unintentional, so I disabled the second program. The first Avast! filter (one I didn't set up) calls for Apple Script to run for every message (can I presume that's both incoming and outgoing?). Perhaps Avast! is collecting data via email daily? In that case, why suppress the fact that an email went out ....? In any case I'll check the activity window and report any results . Thanks for your generous help!

G

 

[[email protected]]

Egidio,

BTW, Frequently just one extra and unrecorded email per day, but I've seen days with several instances, addressed to various recipients.

G

 

[Egidio]

G,

I'd read the instructions on those anti-spam software/scripts you have to understand how they work and what they're doing in the background. Maybe they are collecting data about your recipients, and they might be sending email automatically to some unknown address. Or maybe I'd simply disable both programs and see if that clears the double emails.

 

[[email protected]]

Egidio,

Working on it, eliminating one program at a time. So far, no joy. If anything, the issue has gotten worse; now I'm getting multiple messages out for every single addressee, sometimes three. I'll keep you posted.

 

[[email protected]]

Egidio,
Just a quick follow-up. Shutting down various helper apps did nothing to eliminate the weird multiple emails, but then, yesterday morning I downloaded and installed a massive set of updates that appear from the install log to be both system code and security updates among others. Abruptly, the multiple outgoing email indication disappeared. Now I'm wondering if this was just a reporting issue in the email program. Or maybe some worm got overwritten. Perhaps I'll never know, but I would appreciate hearing from any readers that may have also experienced this problem. In any case, Egidio, I thank you again for your suggestions. Take care. GS

 

[Egidio]

You're welcome. Glad it's working well for you. I never think of checking for updates when problems are reported here. Now, I'll mention it.