February 2007

Fighting Spam with Outlook

The Spam deluge is causing ever more frustration and wasted time. If you haven’t already discovered this tip, here’s how you can use Outlook to completely eliminate Spam from your Inbox.

Set up Filtering

Go to Tools | Options

Click on "Junk E-Mail..."

Choose "Safe Lists Only" and then click on the "Safe Senders" tab.

Use the "Add" button to add email addresses individually. And, be sure that the "Also trust email from my Contacts" box is checked.

Click "Apply" and then "OK." Close and then re-start Outlook.

The Result

From this point forward, any email that is NOT from the email addresses you specifically list in the Safe Senders and Safe Recipients lists (or are in your Contacts) will be placed in the "Junk Email" folder in Outlook.

You'll need to check the Junk E-Mail folder regularly at first to delete the spam messages — and to make sure you don't miss any email you want to receive.

But I want to hear from this person

No problem! Right click on the message in your Junk E-mail folder that you want to receive. Here you can add the sender to the list of Safe Senders.

Note that you can add the Sender's Domain — so if you want to receive messages from more than one person at a domain, you don't have to add them individually.

When you choose to add a sender to the safe list, they will be added here:

If you find that you no longer want to receive mail from a particular sender or organization, simply select Remove and email from them will be placed in the Junk Email Folder.

OK, I'm tired of emptying the Junk E-Mail folder

Once you are sure that only spam is being placed in the Junk E-Mail folder, you can check the box that will permanently delete suspected junk!

We hope that this tip will help you save most of the time you now spend identifying and deleting spam from your Inbox!