Mark an Email Message as Not Junk in Outlook
Just like all other major email services, Microsoft Outlook employs an intelligent spam filter to automatically classify incoming messages as either spam or legitimate. The filter is designed to learn from Outlook users, and you can teach it to mark specific messages as not junk by manually marking them accordingly.
Outlook.com (Web)
Here's what you need to do to prevent Outlook emails from going to spam by marking them as not junk in the web version of Outlook:
- Log in to your Outlook.
- Select the Junk Email folder.
- Right-click the message you want to teach Outlook to mark as not junk.
- Navigate to the Report submenu.
- Select the Not Junk option.
Outlook Desktop App
To stop emails from going to junk in the Outlook desktop app, follow these steps:
- Launch the Outlook desktop app.
- Select the Junk Email folder.
- Right-click the message you want to prevent from going to the spam folder in Outlook.
- Navigate to the Junk submenu (called Report Junk in the new version of Outlook on Mac).
- Select the Not Junk option.
Regardless of whether you use the web version of Outlook or the desktop app, the message or messages marked as Not Junk will be immediately moved to the Inbox folder. Unfortunately, there's no guarantee that future similar messages will not end up in the Junk folder again.
That's because the Outlook spam filter learns over time, so a single user marking a message as Not Junk one time is very unlikely to be enough to make it behave differently. If you're looking for instant results, then we recommend you use the following method instead.
Stop Emails from Going to Junk in Outlook by Adding Them to Your Safe Senders List
As an Outlook user, you can add a sender's email address to the Safe Senders list to ensure that messages sent from it won't ever go to the junk folder.
While you're at it, you should check the Filters section to see if the "Only trust email from addresses in my Safe senders and domains list and Safe mailing lists" is unchecked.
We also recommend you check the "Also trust email from my Contacts" option since there's no reason to ever block messages from people you know and communicate with on a regular basis.
Prevent Outlook Emails from Going to Spam By Unblocking Legitimate Senders
Just like you can tell Outlook to never block specific senders, you can tell it to always block messages from certain addresses using the Blocked Senders and Domains feature.
What sometimes happens is that a legitimate sender ends up on the Blocked Senders list, and that's why you should follow the instructions on Microsoft’s website to make sure you haven't blocked someone by mistake.
At this point, you emails should no longer be going to spam in Outlook by mistake, but there’s still more you can do to ensure they always end up in the right folder, so keep on reading.
Create Inbox Rules to Automatically Move Emails to the Right Folder
The most effective way to stop important emails from going to spam or getting buried in your inbox is to automatically move them to the right folder by creating an inbox rule.
Clean Email, a popular inbox organizer for Outlook and other email services, makes this easy, providing a feature-packed alternative to the native inbox rules setup process in Outlook. For example, you can effortlessly create rules for multiple senders at a time, take advantage of sophisticated filters and grouping options, and more.
Here's how it works:
- Go to: https://app.clean.email/
- Sign in with your Outlook account.
- Select the Auto Clean tool in the left pane and click the Plus icon to create a new rule.
- Tell Clean Email which email address you want the rule to apply to.
- Specify what you want to happen with matching messages. In this case Move to → Inbox or any custom folder you want.
- Click Create Rule to confirm.
From now on, Clean Email will automatically apply the selected action to matching messages in your inbox. While you're at it, we encourage you to explore other features Clean Email has to offer, including Unsubscriber, Screener, Privacy Monitor, and more.
💡 Note: Clean Email can’t apply rules to old messages that are already located in Spam folder.
Now that you know how to stop emails from going to spam in Outlook using native features and a third-party inbox organizer called Clean Email, it’s up to you to apply these techniques to ensure that you’ll never miss any important emails ever again.
Stop Emails from Going to Junk in Outlook - FAQs
Is it free to automatically move incoming emails to a certain folder in Outlook using Clean Email?
You can try the Auto Clean feature for free for 14 days—no credit card required.
Can I create a filter rule in Outlook (built-in) to prevent emails from going to spam?
Yes, you can create inbox rules in the web version of Outlook and using the desktop application. Microsoft provides step-by-step instructions on how to do on its website.
Can I create filter rules using Outlook mobile app's built-in features?
No, unfortunately, the mobile app for Android and iOS doesn't support the creation of filters. If you want to create inbox filter using your mobile device, then we recommend you use Clean Email instead.
