Outlook Spam Filter not Working

By default, the spam filter is activated and the protection level is set to No automatic filter. You can make the filter more aggressive by changing the level of protection it provides. The spam filter evaluates each incoming message based on several factors. These may include the time the message was sent and the content of the message.

To change the spam filter options, do the following:

Click Start> Trash> Spam Email Options.

Lists of spam filters

While the spam filter automatically checks your incoming messages, spam email filter lists allow you to control what is considered spam. You can add names, email addresses and domains to these lists so that the filter does not verify messages from trusted sources or block messages that arrive from specific email addresses and domains that you do not know.

List of secure senders Email addresses and domain names in the list of secure senders are never treated as spam, regardless of the content of the message. You can add your Contacts and other correspondents to this list. However, by design, secure domains are not recognized by default in Exchange Online or in Exchange Online Protection. Only blocked domains, blocked sender addresses and secure sender addresses are recognized. If you use a Microsoft Exchange Server account, all names and addresses in the global address list (GAL) are automatically considered secure. The safe sender limit is 1024.

List of secure recipients If you belong to a mailing list or a distribution list, you can add the sender of the list to the list of secure recipients. Messages sent to these email addresses or domain names are never considered junk, regardless of the content of the message.

Blocked senders list You can easily block messages from particular senders by adding their email addresses or domain names to the Blocked senders list. When you add a name or email address to this list, Outlook moves any incoming message from that source to the Junk Mail folder. Messages from people or domain names that appear on this list are always classified as junk, regardless of the content of the message. The limit of the blocked sender is 500.

List of blocked top-level domains To block unwanted email messages from another country / region, you can add country / region codes to the list of blocked top-level domains. For example, when marking the boxes CA [Canada], USA. [United States] and MX [Mexico] in the list, messages from email addresses ending in .ca, .us and .mx are blocked.

Blocked encoding list to block unwanted email messages that appear in another character set or alphabet, you can add encodings to the Blocked encodings list.

Differences of spam filter when cached mode is enabled or disabled

If you use an Exchange account, you have access to another layer of tools to combat spam.

If you use cached exchange mode or download it to an Outlook data file (.pst), spam filter lists are saved on the server and available from any computer. The server also uses the filter lists to evaluate the messages. This means that if a sender appears in your Blocked Senders List, messages from that sender are moved to the Junk Email folder on the server and Outlook does not evaluate them.

If you work online spam email filter lists are saved on the server. They are available from any computer, but only if you have the Unwanted Email feature enabled in Outlook Web Access or Outlook Web App. The server also uses filter lists to evaluate messages. This means that if a sender appears in your Blocked Senders List, messages from that sender are moved to the Junk Email folder on the server and Outlook does not evaluate them.