How to configure Outlook junk mail settings to automatically filter spam

Modified on Fri, Jun 30, 2023 at 3:35 PM

How to configure Outlook junk mail settings to automatically filter spam

The Outlook Junk Email Filter automatically scans your incoming emails, but you can adjust its settings to provide the filter with guidance on what to identify as spam. In the below instructions, we'll use Outlook 365, but the settings are essentially the same in all versions of Outlook 2010 - 2021, so you won't have any problems with following.

Note. As each email account has its own Junk Mail settings, be sure to switch to the target account before configuring the junk mail settings.

To enable the Outlook spam filter, carry out these steps:

By clicking on the links above, you'll be taken to the section that has all the juicy details about each step.

Junk email settings in Outlook

To get to the Outlook junk email settings, on the Home tab, in the Delete group, click Junk > Junk E-mail Options… Outlook Junk E-mail Options

This opens the Junk E-mail Options dialog box, which is divided into 5 tabs that control various aspects of spam protection. Let's take a brief look at each tab and focus on the essential settings.

Set junk email protection level

On the Options tab, you choose the desired level of spam protection:

No Automatic Filtering - no automatic junk mail filtering, but emails from the Blocked Senders list are still moved to the Junk folder.
Low - the most tolerant option that filters only the most obvious spam.
High - catches most spam emails but may also misidentify legitimate messages and move them to the spam folder. If you choose this option, don't forget to periodically review your Junk mail folder.
Safe lists only - the maximum level of protection that only allows emails from people in the Safe Senders and Safe Recipients lists.

Besides the protection levels, two more options are available to you:

Permanently delete suspected spam email instead of moving it to Junk folder
Warn about suspicious domain names in e-mail addresses (available for any protection level other than No Automatic Filtering)

Tips and notes:

It is recommended to test which option works best for you over a short period. If too much spam is still getting into your inbox, switch to the High setting. On the other hand, if too many legitimate emails such as subscribed newsletters are being mistakenly filtered as spam, switch to the Low setting.
The Safe Lists Only option may not be the best choice as it requires manually adding safe senders to a list. Any sender not on the list will be filtered as spam, which can include legitimate emails from new clients or customers requesting quotes.
Enabling the Permanently delete suspected junk email option leaves no chance to recover a message mistakenly treated as junk. It's advisable to periodically check the spam folder instead of relying on this option.

Prevent good emails to be treated as junk

Using the Safe Senders and Safe Recipients tabs, you can add specific email addresses or domain names to the Safe lists. E-mail messages from anyone on these lists will never be considered spam regardless of their content.

Safe Senders List - allows you to mark email addresses and domain names as safe, preventing them from being treated as junk irrespective of the message content. However, safe domains are not automatically recognized in Exchange Online. The Safe Sender list is limited to 1024 items.

Safe Recipients List - allows you to mark mailing and distribution list senders as safe.

To add someone to your safe list, click the Add button in the right-hand part of the window, and then type an e-mail address or domain name in the pop-up dialog box. Add an email address or domain name to the Safe Senders list.

Tips and notes:

To trust all emails from your Contacts or automatically add people you email to the Safe Senders list, select the corresponding option on the Safe Senders tab.
If you have an Exchange Server account, all names and email addresses in the Global Address List (GAL) are automatically considered safe.
Another way to add a specific contact to the Safe list is to right click a message, click Junk and choose one of the options: Never Block Sender, Never Block Sender's Domain, or Never Block this Group or Mailing List.
You can import Safe Senders from a .txt file by clicking the Import from File… button in the right-hand part of the dialog window.

Block malicious senders

On the Blocked Senders tab, you can see email addresses that are already blocked, add more senders to the list or unblock a particular sender. All messages from blocked senders are considered spam and automatically moved to the Junk folder.

To block a sender, click the Add button, and then type an e-mail address or domain name in the pop-up dialog box.

To remove someone from junk, select it in the Blocked Senders list and click the Remove button. Block senders of spam email.

Tip. Another quick way to block a specific spammer is to right-click the message and choose Junk > Block Sender from the context menu. To remove a good contact from junk, choose Never Block Sender.

Block unwanted email from certain countries or in foreign languages

Spammers often use domains from obscure regions where domain registration is cheap. On the International tab, you can mark certain country domains as spam to stop receiving unsolicited email in foreign languages that you don't know.

This tab provides the following two options:

Blocked Top-Level Domains List. Use this option to block emails from specific countries or regions. For example, if you select IN (India) in the list, you will stop receiving any messages from the .in domain. However, this option may not be effective against junk emails sent from popular email services like Gmail or Outlook.com.

Blocked Encodings List. Use this option to eliminate unwanted e-mail in a specific language encoding. Block top-level domains from specific countries or regions.

Note. Messages that have unknown or unspecified encodings will be filtered by the Junk E-mail Filter in the usual way.

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