Can't block some junk emails

Anonymous
2013-07-23T17:36:32+00:00

Hello, I've been getting hundreds of junk emails since hotmail.com changed over to outlook.com. I have been blocking every single one and it has reduced the amount that get through to my inbox however I have a major problem. I cannot block certain emails because outlook doesn't recognise them as email addresses. For example I get junk emails daily from: admin@.__Bouce_dn but I cannot block this address because it starts with @. which outlook doesn't recognise as an address. Please advise!!!!!

Paul

Outlook | Web | Outlook.com | Settings

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments No comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2013-07-25T06:24:39+00:00

Hello PaulPKlax,

Welcome to Microsoft Community. We are happy to help you with your concern.

We understand that you are having issue with your Microsoft account. You said that you've been getting hundreds of spam emails since your account has been changed to Outlook.com. You also mentioned that you cannot block some of the spam emails because Outlook doesn't recognize them as email address.

There are several ways on how you can block spam emails in your mailbox. Here are some options that you can set up in your account:

Junk mail filter - Selecting Exclusive option. This feature will let you receive emails from your contact list and safe senders list. To set up a junk mail filter to Exclusive, please follow these steps:

  1. Sign in to your Microsoft account.
  2. Click the gear icon located on the upper right panel of your mailbox, just beside your username.
  3. Select More mail settings.
  4. Under Preventing junk email, click on Filters and reporting option.
  5. Under Choose a junk email filter, select Exclusive.
  6. Click the Save button.

Email rules - You can set up email rules to filter incoming emails to automatically delete them and not getting them in your Inbox. If you want to create an email rule to delete emails coming from an email address, kindly refer to these steps:

  1. Sign in to your Microsoft account.
  2. Click the gear icon located on the upper right panel of your mailbox, just beside your username.
  3. Select More mail settings.
  4. Under Customizing Outlook, click the Rules for sorting new messages option.
  5. Click the New button.
  6. Under Step 1: Which messages do you want this rule to apply to?

On the first box with drop down list, select the Sender's address and in the second box with drop down list, select yes.

  1. On the third box, type sender's email address. You may select any option that you want to use at first, second and third box depending on your preference.
  2. Under Step 2: What action do you want to apply? Select Delete these messages.
  3. Click the Save button.

Blocked senders list - You can add email address/es or domain/s in this list to stop receiving emails from them. You also need to delete them from your contact list and safe senders list as well. Here's how?

  1. Sign in to your Microsoft account.
  2. Click the gear icon located on the upper right panel of your mailbox, just beside your username.
  3. Select More mail settings.
  4. Under “Preventing junk email”, click the Safe and blocked senders option.
  5. Click Blocked senders.
  6. In the Blocked email address or domain box, type the email address of the sender or the domain that you want to block, and then click Add to list.

Sweep features - Sweeping emails for deletion. By using Sweep feature it will clean up all the email from a folder and selected users specially emails from spammers. How to use Sweep feature?

  1. Log in to your Microsoft account.
  2. Check the email that that you received from spammers.
  3. On the top of your mailbox user interface click "Sweep."
  4. Once you click "Sweep," select "Delete all from."
  5. Check the small box that stating "Also block future messages."
  6. Click 'Delete all."

All the emails from the spammer will be automatically deleted and it will go directly to your deleted folder.

We hope that those steps will help. If your issue was not fixed, please reply to this message, so we can continue to support you.

Regards,

Carissa J.

Was this answer helpful?

40+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments No comments

217 additional answers

Sort by: Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2016-09-13T02:57:16+00:00

    Hello John,

    I am using Outlook.com / Hotmail.com (live.com)

    What is happening to some new Junk mails (a week or 2 ago): some emails have symbols, dots and letters and numbers as: ******@......1234......com or something like that. When I try to block them, I have a message that says: Error

    "this address is not a regular address, this email cannot be blocked".

    I tried all the instructions. They only apply if the email address is "normal"

    Thank you!

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments No comments
  2. Anonymous
    2016-09-15T01:07:23+00:00

    I am having the same problem, also only started a couple of weeks ago.

    If this is the where outlook is headed, I'm going to have to switch to something else.  Shame cause I have had this email address for the last 18 years.

    Was this answer helpful?

    4 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments No comments
  3. Anonymous
    2016-09-15T13:50:31+00:00

    It's sad, but I'm looking at the same solution.  All I ever get is the canned responses from Microsoft or the unhelpful suggestion to "just delete them."  The problem is I'm getting 10+ emails per day and have to be careful I don't delete something that I want.  As I said before, Outlook recognizes that the characters are illegal, so why can't I have an option to junk all email that contains illegal characters?  It doesn't seem like that would take a lot of coding to change.  These illegal email addresses seem to be of two types.  One just contains illegal characters.  The other is headed with "info-" "local-" and other assorted headers that are then followed with email addressed.  For example: ******@xxxx.com.  These addresses cannot be blocked and the part of the address that appears after "info-" and "local-" changes every time.

    Was this answer helpful?

    3 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments No comments
  4. Anonymous
    2016-09-17T21:38:09+00:00

    Hi,

    You can follow the steps I posted above on how to fix the concern regarding blocking messages. It's under Fiona's post.

    Let us know how it goes.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments