Why am I suddenly getting so many spam emails on outlook.com from an apparent AI bot?

"Always use Outlook service to load images". This should be the default setting by outlook anyway. Worth checking though...

If the simple solution of just checking the boxes under the filters option and 'saving' doesn't work (early days), then I will do as you have done Levi.

I just went into deleted and clicked the 'recover items', then checked all and deleted (over 1,400....) as this was an obvious precaution that I missed until you mentioned it. 🙄 One hour in and not a single spam/phishing email yet, fingers crossed....

Done that and just received a crazy number of emails blocking is of no use either.

So, that didn't work for me either..... They did say it could take a while to kick in. 🤨

Someone else posted that ticking the "Only trust email etc" and "Block attachments, pictures etc", then save worked for them. Once that is done, close outlook, re-start and then when normal emails come in you can select "I trust content from ***@***". I have done this and although it is early days, I haven't had any junk/phishing/spam emails.... However, when I go back into settings, the "Only trust email etc" is un-ticked??? Check the box, save, come out of settings, go back in and the box is un-checked every time.

Settings>Email>Junk Email>Scroll to bottom>Under Filters, tick both boxes and save.

this sounds very aggravating, I'd be especially annoyed,

before I started my new regime I did a major spring clean of my account, I wanted to clean out anything that could possibly be attracting the attention of spammers,

I deleted any contacts in my address book that were redundant,

I cleared my safe and blocked senders lists entirely and started again from scratch,

I made sure in the settings that 'read reciepts' would never be sent, under no circumstances,

on one account I found an archive folder that I had no recollection of ever creating with two spammy emails in it, I deleted them and the folder,

I deleted any drafts, all sent items and everything in the deleted items folder,

in the deleted folder, even after emptying the folder you still have the option to recover deleted items, click on that and it opens another folder that you can empty entirely,

having got rid of anything and everything I didn't need or want I then began blocking every unwanted sender,

I didn't use the 'block sender' button, I individually copied the senders address and pasted it into the block list,

I kept checking my building blocked senders list and if I was getting spam from variations of an address from the same domain I would block that domain,

using the filter option to 'Block all attachments, pictures and links not in my safe senders list' was a precaution to disable any tracking beacons embedded in spam emails I was opening to copy their address to add to my block list,

in settings, under: General>Privacy & Data>External images I selected the option to "Always use Outlook service to load images"

after a week of this new regime, with a rebuilt blocked senders list with about 30 different senders addresses and domains added, the Outlook service set to load images, but all attachments, pictures and links blocked from senders not in my safe senders list, I'm down to about 1 spam email a day and they seem to be rather old fashioned ones, text only, the sort of classic Nigerian email phishing scam of the 2000s,

maybe in my initial 'spring clean' I did erase something lurking in my account that was acting like a beacon, it's all pretty spartan now,

you do have my sympathy, spam email is like a form of psychological abuse, I'd be really glad to hear if you manage to defeat these abusers in some way,

I seem to have got them off my back by being very determined and equally persistent,

Done that and just received a crazy number of emails blocking is of no use either.

I gave what you recommended a try, but it was unsuccessful. More than 200 emails end up in my junk bin, and some even make it to my inbox. What is Microsoft doing to fix this problem as it is becoming quite annoying? I would give it up. but since email is the new means of communication for everyone and everything,