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

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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.

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-11-05T15:55:23+00:00

    when we can't group block emails and have to go through emails separately to find those emails we are unable to block, why doesn't hotmail/outlook allow us to block the ones we can block and then just delete those we cant block? that would save all this hassle we are having with not being able to block certain emails.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-11-04T12:00:19+00:00

    I've found solution myself after realizing that NO Microsoft people would be able to actually help.

    It's simple, just create a rule to auto-junk or auto-delete all incoming emails with "@." in the sender's email address. Or any other weird symbols that are not accepted. In my case it's the "-" in address. It worked for me.

    Will this block legit emails with "-" symbol? Yes it will but I don't care.

    How to create a rule? It's simple just google it.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-11-03T14:54:39+00:00

    Hey, after much irritation with the same problem, I've gone looking for an answer.

    My "Exclusive" option was already selected and I get a COUPLE-HUNDRED of these emails daily. Some of them even showed my OWN email address. I don't open junk emails, and I've resorted to checking them all as phishing. I've gone through the "trusted" emails and SOMEHOW some of the ones I'd rather be blocked have given themselves allowance to the 'safe' folder.

    Like the others, these steps don't help me at all.  Most of everything is *already* sent to my junk folder, but some stuff that I trust is sent there too, so I still have to be careful of what I delete.

    It kind of disappoints me that I see this:

    Because the issue was posted JULY 23, 2013 and it appears that Microsoft isn't doing much to assist their users beyond standard generic procedures for a problem that isn't so standard generic. Why isn't it that there is some kind of filter INTEGRATED in the system that decides whether or not the email is valid so that it's blocked right off the bat? If the Blocking system knows they're not valid email addresses already, why are we allowed to receive them at all? With the excessive amount of "invalid emails" I get, multiples of the ones I can't delete REPEATEDLY, I would assume that clicking the block button SHOULD, in theory work. Can Microsoft not withdraw the "invalid email" message and allow you to block whatever you want?

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-11-01T20:24:27+00:00

    Please could a representative from Microsoft look into this, and prioritise a fix. This never used to happen, I used to be able to block all spam, but now (since the outlook upgrade from Hotmail) I'm getting bombarded with spam that I can't block. Getting the same error message as everyone else...."the address is not valid". Looks like the spammers are using 2 @ marks in their address?

    I have being using Hotmail for well over a decade and don't really want to have to move over to google, but this could really push me across.

    Microsoft - please sort it out.

    UK

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