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.

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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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217 additional answers

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  1. Brian Tillman [Outlook MVP 2007-2019] 25,915 Reputation points
    2017-02-20T23:32:47+00:00

    >  I recommend adding a wildcard feature when blocking a domain name.

    I, too, think this is a good idea. Let Microsoft know what you believe by clicking the question mark at the right end of the menu bar, then clicking "Suggestion box>Share your idea".

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-02-20T22:01:23+00:00

    In the last week I have dealt with more than 80 junk email address that cannot be blocked.  That is in addition to the junk email addresses that can be blocked.

    For the email addresses that return the message that the email address cannot be blocked, the work around that I have figured out is to place the cursor over the email address in the Junk folder and write down everything that appears after the "@" character which indicates that is the domain name.  Then follow the instructions of using the "gear" in the upper right corner, go to "Options", and under Junk Email select Blocked senders.

    Type in the domain name (which followed the "@" in the unblockable email address, click on the plus sign and save the list.

    Periodically go through the list of blocked email addresses and you will notice there are some domain names that appear regularly.  For example, I had lots of addresses ending with "@1and1.de" so entering "1and1.de" as the domain name took care of blocking multiple singular accounts.

    Here's what would make it much easier for Outlook users -- heads up Microsoft programmers, these are not difficult adjustments.  

    First, add the capability to copy the blocked senders list.  That way users can copy their blocked senders list and sort it to more readily find the domain names that are linked to junk emails and streamline the blocked senders list by blocking the entire domain instead of individual email addresses.

    Second, since I now have an exhaustive list of domain names associated with junk emails, I have noticed similarities in those domain names that cannot be blocked using the block email feature.  Following the "@" in the email address, there are letters and numbers that are usually separated by a "-", but all of them also have a "." before the tail of the address.  For example, today I manually blocked three domain names ending with ".woodassist.com".  To combat this, and to reduce the number of entries in the blocked list ending with ".woodassist.com", I recommend adding a wildcard feature when blocking a domain name.  Instead of requiring Outlook users to type in everything after the "@" to block the domain, an entry of "?.woodassist.com" is all that would be required.

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  3. Brian Tillman [Outlook MVP 2007-2019] 25,915 Reputation points
    2017-02-19T19:05:57+00:00

    > I'm tired of getting rubbish like this;

    > >">. Press the Enter key to open the contact card." class="bidi allowTextSelection"

    > style="unicode-bidi:embed;direction:ltr;-webkit-user-select:text;cursor:pointer;">IT

    > Cosmetics <"</<*** Email address is removed for privacy ***>&gt;">

    I know for a fact that Microsoft is trying to get a comprehensive block of invalid addresses like this in place.

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-02-19T14:13:01+00:00

    the spammers seem to be trying a new trick, some of them now show up as flagged, this means some VERY serious security flaws.........

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