How to Manage Junk Mail and Spam in Microsoft Outlook 2007

Junk Mail Filter in Outlook 2007

The Junk E-mail Filter sends spam and other blech email messages to your Junk folder. Outlook turns on the filter by default with the protection level set to Low.

View Junk E-mail Options in two steps:

1. Select Junk E-mail from the Actions menu.
2. Click Junk E-mail options.

The filter also reviews all incoming messages for phishing, so you don’t submit personal information to a fake Web site that looks like a real Web site. The Options page, by default, disables links and scripts in phishing messages.

You can change the level of filtering protection to the following:

• No Automatic Filtering: Outlook doesn’t filter messages unless they’re from senders on your Blocked Senders list.
• Low: Less likely to move non-junk messages into the junk folder, but more junk messages will appear in the inbox than they do on High setting.
• High: More likely to catch all junk messages, but could send legitimate messages into the junk folder.
• Safe Lists Only: The only messages you receive in your inbox are those e-mail addresses and domains like companyname.com listed in your Safe Senders and Safe Recipient lists.

Add, edit, and remove email addresses and domain names in the Safe Senders, Safe Recipients and Blocked Senders tabs using the Add, Edit and Remove buttons in each tab. Some Web sites publish text files with known addresses that you can import into the Blocked Senders list. However, spammers never stick with an address for long and it’s impossible to keep up with all the bad senders out there on the Internet.

You can share your lists with family members, colleagues or another computer by clicking Export to File. Enter a file name and click Save.

Modify the last four options on the Options tab to your preferences. The International tab lets you filter email messages appearing in other languages than your own to the Junk folder. If you don’t have family, friends or colleagues in other countries or using top-level domains like AD (Andorra) or ZW (Zimbabwe), you may want to block messages from those top-level domains.

You can do the same for encodings, which blocks e-mail messages appearing in selected languages.

The Junk E-mail Filter recognizes all Contacts emails as safe. However, you can add email address to the Safe Senders list with the following steps:

1. Click the Safe Senders tab on the Junk E-mail Options window.
2. Click Add.
3. Enter the e-mail addresses or top-level domain.
4. Click OK.

These steps also work for the other Junk E-mail Options window tabs. Also on the Safe Senders tab, you can check or uncheck the boxes for trusting e-mails from your contacts and automatically adding email address of people you send e-mails to on the Safe Senders list.

No matter what steps you take to filter the junk, no filtering process is perfect. On occasion, you might want to check your Junk folder to ensure no legitimate emails appear in the folder. If they do, move them to the inbox and add the email address to the Safe Senders list.

If you’re not sure about an email that asks for your personal information, go to your Internet browser and enter the Web site’s URL instead of clicking the link from within the email message. If a legitimate Web site needs information from you, it will let you know on its Web site. Stay safe.