Comments on: Setting Outlook spam filter to stop junk email

Outlook provides various tools and techniques to help you fight spam. If you're working in a corporate setting, it's likely that your Exchange server has an anti-spam filter to block unwanted emails. However, for your personal computer, it's up to you to set up your own filter. Continue reading →

Comments page 3. Total comments: 113

  1. outllok 2010 does not move junk mail out of my inbox until I click on it. It used to never make it to my inbox. how do I fix it?

  2. I would like to be able to filter & permanently delete email based on one word or phrase in the From field. However, Outlook doesn't seem to allow this. It's necessary because while I get dozens of spams containing "aig" in the From field, few are phrased exactly the same, much the way no 2 email addresses from spammers are exactly alike. And "aig" appears nowhere else in the email. I have maxed out the filters on my Verizon account, so that's no longer an option.

    1. You CAN send mail to the junk folder or anywhere else using the RULES function. You have a lot more options. I have chosen "specific words appear in the senders address" and just entered a text string that always appears. You can even EXclude other specific words if you have a sender that uses the same mailing list that you want to receive mail from. I have chosen words like "smdlv.net" or whatever always appears at the end. It works. Good luck with "aig"

    2. As I posted above, I have solved this by using the RULES function. You have so many more options. The one I use is "specific words appear in the senders address" and just entered a text string that always appears. Then simply move the e-mail to the junk folder. I have a couple of rules with things like "smdlv.net" or whatever is being used for the mailing list and it is picking up most of the trash. Good luck with "aig"

  3. Hi- the junk email setting works fine for me BUT if I delete all the junk emails then the same spam starts coming back into my inbox and once again I have to start adding them to junk email.

  4. Shame on Microsoft, I regret upgrading to Windows 10, it has no junk mail blocking choice, money, of course, you are diminishing your good name.

  5. Shame on Microsoft, we need to block what we feel as junk; why do you go backwards? Money of course, you are diminishing your good name.Good luck!

  6. I didn't notice if this was addressed or not but we just switched from pop3 to imap for incoming mail. Prior to this switch i rarely received junk in my inbox. Now I'm bombarded and overwhelmed with junk email. I have two offices and I'm using Outlook 2010 on one computer and I believe office 360 on the other. Does that pose any kind of conflict at all. We're thinking maybe we need to switch hosting companies. Any help appreciated, thanks

  7. I really appreciated this page, as somehow my sisters e-mail was accidentally added to the junk bin, I found this page extremely helpful as I searched and searched google for a solution, which I finally found - only on this page, that showed me clearly how to remove her name from the junk list - Thanks AbleBits your help was gratefully appreciated

  8. this relates to outlook 2013

  9. If charlie spammer is sending me emails from ALL of the following (multiple) domains - AND more, do i need to put all those entries in the blocked senders list or is there some shortcut to this madness. I tried putting @domaina.com in the blocked senders list but that does not seem to block any of charlies messages. Any suggestions?

    first.domaina.com
    second.domaina.com
    third.domaina.com
    fourth.domaina.com
    fifth.domaina.com
    sixth.domaina.com
    etc.

    1. If you are being plagued by one particular person or company and outlook's junk filter is not working (usually because the domain changes each time) you should be able to set up a "RULE". Go into rules instead of junk and search for a particular string of letters in the senders address and then simply MOVE it to the JUNK folder.

      I am looking forward to trying this as I am getting lots of mail from domains like "@mail16.atl91.mcsv.net" where the numbers keep changing every time.

      I will report back if it works.

      1. Yes it does work. You CAN send mail to the junk folder or anywhere else using the RULES function. You have a lot more options. I have chosen "specific words appear in the senders address" and just entered a text string that always appears. You can even EXclude other specific words if you have a sender that uses the same mailing list that you want to receive mail from. Hope this idea helps someone.

        1. Thanks you. I will give it a try.

  10. Hi, some of my domain emails do not automatically have a junk folder and others do.
    How can I create a junk folder that junk will automatically go to?
    Thanks
    Sharon

  11. how do I stop emails going into the "Unwanted" file tab when they should be in my inbox?

  12. I have Outlook 2007 by the way...

  13. Hello, is there a way to ensure that .zip files are not accepted in Outlook? We have a virus that is using the names in our contacts list that sends out emails with a .zip file attached which contains the virus... We have run virus scans, removed the viruses, but yet a name will show up from our contacts and the virus file attached. Please help.

  14. how to stop auto send spamming mail in outlook 2003

  15. Svetlana,

    Your article is the most comprehensive one on junk email that I've see so far. Great job!

    I group all the junk emails that I want to block in a folder and I try to click Junk (on the ribbon) and then Block Sender at once. I was able to do this (blocking senders from multiple emails) last week (so I was very happy and recorded the steps) but today, Outlook only allows me to block one email at a time. Very strange. Anyone has any insight? Thanks much!

    1. Hello Scarlett,

      Thank you very much for your feedback!

      Outlook allows you only to block a particular sender, it does not support blocking multiple emails you select. There are third-party tools that let you do this, but no standard way except for blocking them one by one.

  16. I have so many personalized setting in my laptop and i am going to replace the same now. How to transfer all the settings in new laptop.

  17. All of sudden my junk settings became empty.As of my knowledge we will not be able to recover the safer and block sender list.

    Do we have any other option to recover it ?

  18. Hello,
    I have a question: I have over 7000 blocked email in the blocked senders. How do I find the one that I want to get out of it? I copy paste all of them and sorted them in word, found the email but surely cannot find it in the little window. Any tricks? Thanks

    1. Hello Cathy,

      Unfortunately, Outlook does not provide search in the list of blocked addresses. However, the list is sorted, so it may help with finding the right address quicker. You can also export the list to file, edit it in a text editor and save the changes. Then clear the list in Outlook and import the edited file.
      We hope this helps.

  19. I received junk emails with the sender's name WSJwine almost every day but the email addresses are different. I marked blocking this sender but some of them still come to my in box. Is there any way to specify any email with the sender name WSJwine going to junk email folder no matter what the email address is? I think that Outlook is too stupid to do this simple task. Gmail handles this very well.

    1. Hi Lee,

      Surprisingly, Outlook can't block incoming emails by a sender's name. You need a more powerful and flexible anti-spam filter. Generally, filters based on Bayesian's algorithm are considered to be the best.

  20. I have not quite the same problem but one I cant find an answer to anywhere. All my incoming emails are now being marked as SPAM, they dont go to my junk folder, but no matter how often I mark them never block sender (which is the only thing I can find to do) the next time I have an email from that person it comes back marked SPAM. I have to remember to unmark the email when I reply otherwise it goes to them as Spam, How can I stop this spam marking phenonema. Its fairly recent and I use Outlook 2010.

    1. Hello Lisa,
      Please send your Outlook rules and Junk Mail filter settings to support@ablebits.com. If possible, please also attach a sample email that is marked as SPAM.
      We'll see if there is anything we can do to help you.

  21. From what I saw setting it up in Windows 8, the key location was:

    Outlook 2010: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\office\14.0\outlook

  22. Hi Svetlana

    I have a slightly different issue with Outlook 2010 on my note book. I receive mail items through Outlook on my Surface tablet or my iPhone, which I do not receive on my notebook. It does not get filtered to the spam folder, it just doesn't arrive... While this is consistent with some of the senders, often it happens on a random basis with people I correspond with regularly.

    Help ???

    1. Hey Chris,
      Check your email settings on your Surface and iPhone. There is a setting about whether to leave messages on the server or not after downloading them to your device, and often times, it will be set to not leave them on the server by default. Messages need to be left on the server in order for your other devices to see them.

  23. Before when we would report junk mail to Microsoft using the junk mail button in outlook we would get an email within 24 hours from Microsoft about the reported email. We no longer receive those and are getting more and more junk mail and reporting but they are still coming through. Did they stop the acknowledgement?

    1. Hello Tina,

      It looks strange, please try contacting Microsoft support service (support.microsoft.com) for assistance.

  24. is there a way to run the outlook junk processing on your inbox once you've increased the level of checking?

    I would like to up the spam filter, run it, then check the junk mail box for any senders that I might want to set up as safe. Can I do that?

  25. I have the same problem as Mark w/ 2013 and the Spam Filter has NEVER worked. Should I just go back to 2010 as I've tried everything else?

    1. Hi Chris,

      Since each email account in Outlook 2010 and 2013 has its own Junk Mail settings, be sure to configure the junk filter for ALL the accounts you have in Outlook (you do this by selecting a message in the needed account before opening the Junk E-mail Options dialog).

  26. Thanks for the helpful article. I'm using Outlook for the Mac. I can't seem to get Outlook to stop filtering email to the Junk Folder. Junk Filtering is turned off . . . still, emails (legitimate) are often being sent to my Junk Folder. Any idea what is doing the filtering?

    1. Hello Steve,

      I do not have Mac, that is why I cannot advise anything of value. Sorry.

    1. Hi Debbie,

      Thank you very much for pointing to the solution!

  28. I'm getting bombarded by *.*.eu emails. They are changing the domain in all of the junk but, they all end in .eu -- is there any way to simply block that suffix?

    thx!

    j

    1. Hi Joe,

      For some reason, EU is not available in the "Blocked Top-Level Domains" List on the International tab (at least in my Outlook 2013), that is why there is no way to block all emails with the .eu suffix like you can block any other suffixes such as .de, .es, etc. Not sure why Microsoft did not include EU along with all other counties and regions. In this situation, I can only advise you checking out more powerful and flexible antispam software. Sorry for not being able to help better.

  29. tks!

  30. OK. I am going to sound very stupid here, but I do not know how to identify a domain. As you mentioned, spammers may send the same email but from a different email address every time. I think of domain as the part of the email address: @domain.com for example. Well that changes every time. I know that it is one spammer sending thousands of emails to me but I cannot identify that.

    I did your direction of adding "spam-domain.com" to the block senders section of Outlook but it did nothing. Was that just a generic term and that you really had to know the root domain of the spammer - which is obviously hidden? Any suggestions are helpful. Thanks!

    1. Hello Rich,

      This is a very good question! Your understanding is correct, the domain name is part of the email address that comes after the at sign (@), like in your example @domain.com. And yes, I used "spam-domain.com" as the generic term and you have to know the real domain name of the spammer to add it to the Block senders list.

      As you rightly noticed, most often spammers send their messages from different email addresses each time and quite often these are fake addresses. You can try to find the real address of the sender in the internet headers of a message (open the message and go to the File tab > Info > Properties). Very often the email address you will see there will be different from what you see in the From field. You can check the internet headers of several junk emails in this way and if they all are sent from the same domain name, add that spammer to the Block senders list.

  31. I've got the same problem as John. I have always used Safe List Only because if I don't know someone sending me mail, I probably don't want it. Other than my contacts, there aren't a whole lot of people I want to hear from. But... since I upgraded to 2013, the safe list option doesn't work. I block email addresses but they come through anyway. I block domains but they come through anyway. It's a nightmare. I even switched email providers (from Google to Outlook.com). I'm switching back to Outlook 2010 next weekend.

    1. Hi Mark,

      Before downgrading to Outlook 2010, you might want to check one thing, just in case. Do you have your own contact (with your email address) in your Outlook Address Book? If you do, and if you selected the option "Also trust email from my contacts", this may be the real cause of the problem because all emails sent to your address would be considered safe by default.

  32. 2013 Junk Mail options are the worst ever.
    They do NOT work.
    Even if I check 'Safe List Only' - dozen of repetitive spam crap keeps coming though.
    Even is I add the domain .me to Blocked senders, emails from .me keep coming right through.
    After 3 week of this I am fed up and considering going back to Office suite 2010 - which works fine.
    2007 was also fine
    2013 seems a can of worms.

    1. Do you by chance have yourself in your safe recipients? or maybe have yourself in your address book?

      1. Thank you Geoff. That was exactly my problem and I would never have found it without your post.

    2. I've got the same problem as John and Mark, than one of the notes of this article help me understand why:
      Note: This is just a quick reminder that each email account in Outlook 2010 and 2013 has its own Junk Mail settings. So, be sure to select a message in the needed account before you open the Junk E-mail Options dialog.

  33. For some reason ?? even though I set the junk mail setting to "High" SOMETHING keeps changing it to NO junk filtering. I have done every virus test known to man. I can tell when it happens the spam begins to flood in. Any ideas? Outlook 2003.

    Thanks much
    Gary

    1. Hello Gary,

      I can think of just one possible cause. May it be that you have some third-party anti-spam software installed in your Outlook that changes your setting in order to process all incoming email? Please check out your Add-ins and COM add-ins lists (Outlook Menu > Tools > Options > Other > Advanced options...).

  34. Is there any way in which a list of junk mail can be highlighted and all marked as junk? I am getting dozens of unwanted junk/spam emails with the same theme presumably from spoofed or high-jacked email accounts (none are the same sender and all to different names @ my email address) and I am having to mark as junk individually, it would be a time saver to be able to block the lot and have them all marked Junk? I don't think its possible but I thought I would ask!
    Thanks
    Jeff

    1. Hi Jeff,

      If you are using Outlook 2010 or 2013, you can create a Quick Step to move a message to the Junk folder and assign some shortcut to it, say CTRL + Shift + 1. When you need to mark a bunch of emails as spam, press that shortcut and they all will get to Junk straight away. Regrettably, Outlook does not have any means to automate this process.
      As an alternative, you can consider installing some third-party anti-spam software with a more powerful spam filter's than Outlook's.

  35. I have changed the setting to block the junk email as indicated above but that didn't stop the junk emails from coming. I receive 75 or more junk emails per day. Anything else that I can do?

    1. Hi KJ,

      I am afraid in this case Outlook's built-in filter won't suffice even if you set it to the High level. You need a more powerful and flexible anti-spam filter. Generally, filters based on Bayesian's algorithm are considered to be the best.

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