Microsoft’s mail service Outlook.com might move Office Watch or Office for Mere Morals to Junk Email. Here’s how to stop it doing that for any email,
The same advice applies to other newsletters and emails that are wrongly marked as Spam / Junk Email. The famous UK newsletter, Popbitch, is treated the same way.
Spam filters aren’t perfect
No spam filter is perfect, they detect ‘false positives’ where legitimate emails are wrongly marked as spam. Why this happens is a topic for another time, it’s enough to know that not all messages you want to see will actually reach your Inbox.
The most obvious spam are deleted without you seeing them at all. When the spam filter sees a message it’s not sure about (ie “maybe spam, maybe not”) it can put the message in a Junk Email or Spam folder.
You should check that folder for missing messages before complaining about an unsent email.
In many cases, the Junk Email folder is only online and NOT in Outlook for Windows/Mac
Outlook.com mistake
If you’re looking for a missing message in Outlook.com check the Junk Email folder online or in Outlook software for Windows/Mac.
Go to Outlook.com in your browser and login to your account. Find the Junk Email folder and check out the contents.
Outlook.com keeps suspected Spam in the Junk Email folder for about 10 days, maybe longer. There’s a notice about the exact count when you open one of the Junk Email messages:
Fixing the Junk Email mistake
There are three ways to mark the message as OK or ‘not spam’.
The fastest is to right click on the message and choose ‘Mark as not junk’
That will only move the message to your Inbox.
Alternatively, open one of the Junk Email messages and you’ll see an alert bar. Click on “It’s not spam” and the message moves to the Inbox.
Or, select multiple messages using the check boxes then either right-click to choose ‘Mark as not spam’ or use the Not Junk button on the top menu.
These actions are ‘one off’ only and only affect the selected messages, not future messages.
Outlook software for Windows/Mac
It’s much the same in Outlook software that’s linked to an Outlook.com account.
Go to the Junk Email folder, find the wanted message, right click and choose ‘Not Junk’.
Future Messages
This only works for messages already in the Junk Email folder.
It does NOT change how Outlook.com will treat future messages from Office Watch, Popbitch or some other sender you like. They’ll still be considered possible Spam/Junk Email.
