Computers & Electronics

Hotmail, Live, Outlook Spam Filters Broken

  • Last Updated:
  • Jan 22nd, 2020 8:25 am
Deal Addict
Nov 22, 2003
3733 posts
2064 upvotes

Hotmail, Live, Outlook Spam Filters Broken

I've suddenly been getting loads of spam directly in my "Focused" Inbox over the last 48 hours. This is despite using a sender whitelist. There's definitely a problem as I can see thousands complaining about it on Downdetector and similar websites yet I have yet to see Microsoft publicly acknowledge the problem. Anyone have this issue and/or have any inside knowledge about what is going on? If this doesn't get fixed soon, I'm going to jump to another E-Mail provider. I've been using my current E-Mail address since 1998.
16 replies
Deal Fanatic
User avatar
Aug 29, 2001
6586 posts
1749 upvotes
rural ontario
I have the opposite problem, most of my mail in outlook gets caught by its spam filter that cannot be turned off. Every week I have to check it.
72 69 6c 6c 65 73
Deal Addict
Nov 22, 2003
3733 posts
2064 upvotes
rilles wrote: I have the opposite problem, most of my mail in outlook gets caught by its spam filter that cannot be turned off. Every week I have to check it.
Are you using the "safe senders" whitelist?
Deal Fanatic
User avatar
Aug 29, 2001
6586 posts
1749 upvotes
rural ontario
txenglan wrote: Are you using the "safe senders" whitelist?
Easier not to bother with outlook then keep adding new senders to a whitelist.

That being said, a bit of googling and it's a common problem. Hack is to make a rule to forwards all inbound email to yourself which bypasses the filters. I will try this.
72 69 6c 6c 65 73
Newbie
Aug 1, 2009
25 posts
10 upvotes
I've been experiencing the same thing for about a week. Hopefully Microsoft clues in soon and fixes the problem.
Deal Addict
Nov 22, 2003
3733 posts
2064 upvotes
rilles wrote: Easier not to bother with outlook then keep adding new senders to a whitelist.

That being said, a bit of googling and it's a common problem. Hack is to make a rule to forwards all inbound email to yourself which bypasses the filters. I will try this.
I was getting next to no spam in my Inbox until about 2 years ago when it just suddenly exploded. That's when I had to turn on the whitelist to address the situation. Yes, it's becoming pointless to continue with Hotmail at this point. I think I'm going to migrate to Protonmail.
Deal Addict
Nov 22, 2003
3733 posts
2064 upvotes
PLefebvre wrote: I've been experiencing the same thing for about a week. Hopefully Microsoft clues in soon and fixes the problem.
I haven't seen a single instance of them admitting there's an issue. All I see is their clueless support reps giving people condescending/canned responses about where to go to manage junk mail within the account. I suspect Microsoft still doesn't know they have a problem - on the other hand, I also suspect they don't care.
Newbie
Jul 11, 2010
31 posts
24 upvotes
I've started experiencing the same problem. Seems like mail with emoji or non-standard characters in the From field get passed to your Inbox no matter what. Clearly a Microsoft bug and their fault. Who knows if they'll ever do anything about it though.
Deal Addict
Nov 22, 2003
3733 posts
2064 upvotes
Well they responded to my ticket. Of course, their own response went into my junkmail - the irony:

"Hi,

Thank you for contacting Outlook.com Support. My name is Bhupendra and I will be helping you with your issue today. Let's work together to get this resolved for you.

As per the issue I would like to inform you that this a known issue in Outlook.com where the Junk emails are landing in your Inbox folder by a glitch in the system. But be assured that we and our research team, Developers team, Escalations team, engineering team are currently working on this matter and a fix will soon be rolled out in the form of update. However we don't have an ETA for now.

Please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused
."
Newbie
Jan 6, 2019
59 posts
32 upvotes
Yes, same here. I looked at the raw headers on the SPAM emails, and I can see they all failed the SPF check. That is a very simple check to do, so there is definitely something wrong on the MS end.
Deal Guru
Jul 7, 2017
10217 posts
5530 upvotes
SW corner of the cou…
Might be server specific? Filters for my very old (25 year?) account are still working. If anything, I am getting less spam than a few weeks ago.
I smile when I see container ships sailing past my house laden with stuff made in China
Deal Guru
Jul 7, 2017
10217 posts
5530 upvotes
SW corner of the cou…
Looks like starting within the past day, hotmail spam filters have been getting more aggressive for me putting more of the normal mailing list stuff in junk.
I smile when I see container ships sailing past my house laden with stuff made in China
Deal Addict
Nov 22, 2003
3733 posts
2064 upvotes
thriftshopper wrote: Looks like starting within the past day, hotmail spam filters have been getting more aggressive for me putting more of the normal mailing list stuff in junk.
Probably because they seem to have fixed the issue with whitelists for now. I'd recommend creating a whitelist (safesenders). This will mean you have to add each sender to your whitelist but you can do that over time and it's a lot easier to keep an eye on your junk mail folder for the odd desirable message than to constantly struggle with all the junk in your inbox.
Deal Expert
Dec 5, 2006
16792 posts
12574 upvotes
Markham
People still use hotmail?
Deal Addict
Nov 22, 2003
3733 posts
2064 upvotes
smartie wrote: People still use hotmail?
Why wouldn't they? An email service is an email service.
Deal Addict
Nov 22, 2003
3733 posts
2064 upvotes
hvwkzq wrote: I receive spam maybe once a month at most. My issue with Outlook is it keeps putting legitimate emails in the Junk folder.
Again - use a whitelist.

Top

Thread Information

There is currently 1 user viewing this thread. (0 members and 1 guest)