Emails incorrectly going to spam or junk in Outlook


If you have had problems with emails being incorrectly identified as spam or junk, please follow the recommended solutions in this article.

Check spam filter for Microsoft Outlook

1. On the Home tab in Outlook, click 'Junk', and then click 'Junk E-mail Options'.

Outlook desktop

2. On the Options tab in the Junk E-mail Options dialog box, select the 'No Automatic Filtering'. We have found that some users have this set to 'Safe Senders Only'.

3. Click on the 'Blocked Senders' tab. Make sure any email addresses you want to receive mail from are not listed. You can also add here any email addresses that you would like to block.

Screenshot of 'blocked senders' tab in Outlook desktop

4. Click the tab 'Safe Senders'. Add any email addresses you want to ensure do not go to spam or junk.

Screenshot of 'safe senders' tab in Outlook desktop

Outlook on the web

1. Visit office365.leeds.ac.uk, then open the Outlook app. Open settings by clicking on the cog in the top right and then click on 'View all Outlook settings' 

2. Navigate to the 'Junk email' tab within settings.  

3. Check 'Blocked senders and domains' to make sure any email addresses you want to receive mail from are not listed. You can also add here any email addresses that you would like to block here. 

4. Add into 'Safe senders and domains' any email addresses you want to ensure do not go to spam or junk.

5. Under 'Filters' make sure that 'Only trust email from addresses in my safe senders and domains list and safe mailing lists' is unticked. 

Check quarantine

To see your spam-quarantined messages in quarantine:

  1. Go to your quarantine page at https://protection.office.com/#/quarantine
  2. Sign in, using your University username and password. 
  3. Click on 'Threat management' in the navigation (on the left on a desktop). Under 'Review' you'll see 'Quarantine' - click this.
  4. On your Quarantine page, you'll see a list of any messages that were sent to you but were identified as spam and redirected to the quarantine.
  5. Sort or search messages as needed.
  6. Double-click a specific quarantined message to view details about it and take actions. If the message was not spam, you can release it (have it sent to your mailbox) and report it as 'not junk' to the Microsoft Spam Analysis Team.
  7. Or you can select one or more messages, and then choose an action from the Actions drop-down list.

Check your blocked senders

If you want to remove someone from the blocked senders list:

A screenshot of the Settings menu with Junk email selected