Managing your ACBA swarm list subscription

Here are some tips about managing your ACBA “swarm list” email subscription.

You’ll only be subscribed to the swarm list if you choose that option on the membership form. If you forgot to choose that option and you want to be on the list, contact the membership coordinator at membership@alamedabees.org to be added.
You can unsubscribe from the swarm list at any time by sending an email message to swarm-list-unsubscribe@alamedabees.org, or by using this page on the website. If you have trouble unsubscribing, contact the membership coordinator for help.
The ACBA “Swarm List” email messages are sent from the address swarm-list@alamedabees.org. On a busy day, you might get a lot of these messages. If that’s annoying, you can learn how to filter them below. (Another option is to receive your messages in a once-a-day “digest” form. You can contact the membership coordinator for that, too.)
You can view a history of messages posted to the list since March 28, 2024 on the swarm list archives page. For archives prior to that, the old Google Groups page is also available.
Remember that every message you post to the swarm list goes to more than 300 people. Please be respectful of everyone’s time and move non-urgent discussions to the Bee Talk group.

Delivery problems? If you’re using Gmail, be sure to search “Mail & Spam & Trash”

The swarm list messages are sent from swarm-list@alamedabees.org. Sometimes, your email provider might file the message in your “Promotions” or “Spam” folder, so you might search there.

Gmail has a quirk: if you do a normal “All Mail” search for “swarm-list@alamedabees.org”, it won’t find messages that might be in the “Spam” folder. To find those, click the extra search options icon (in red below), and be sure you’re searching “Mail & Spam & Trash” like this (circled in green):

(As a shortcut, you can copy-and-paste “in:anywhere from:(swarm-list@alamedabees.org)” into the Gmail search box.)

If you find your email provider is putting the messages in the spam folder, you can mark it as “not spam” to try to stop that. If you’re using Gmail, the filtering options below give you a way to make sure that can’t happen.

Filtering swarm list messages in Gmail

Gmail decides based on their own inscrutable algorithms whether they should put swarm list messages in your primary inbox, the “Forums” tab, or somewhere else — and it’s different for each Gmail user. You can force it to work how you want, though:

1. View a Swarm List message and start creating a filter

In Gmail, view one of the swarm list messages you’ve already received. Click the little triangle next to “to me” to show details about the message. Then click Filter messages from this mailing list:

2. Create the filter

The box will already say “Has the words list:(swarm-list.alamedabees.org)”. Just click Create Filter:

3. Choose how to categorize the messages

Check the Categorize As box, then choose how you’d like the messages to be handled — for example, by categorizing them as “Forums”. You can also choose other options. Then click Create Filter:

After doing these steps, the messages should always be treated exactly the way you want.