The Outlook Express replacement for Vista – Windows Mail – includes a built in spam filter that Microsoft has called Junk E-mail. This brief tutorial will explain the various settings so that you can customize Windows Mail to your liking.
- Start by selecting Tools from the top menu and then Junk E-mail Options… from the drop-down list
- On the Options tab you’re presented with the different ‘levels’ of spam filtering that Windows Mail offers. The default is Low, which means that when Windows Mail isn’t totally sure if something is spam, it will ‘play it safe’ and leave the message alone (which is to say it will put the message in your Inbox rather than filter it as Junk).
If you get a fair bit of spam and are willing to put up with the occasional legitimate email being marked as Junk (which is called a false-positive), you might want to switch to the High level of filtering. If you choose the high setting, be sure to check your Junk E-mail folder fairly often to make sure no actual messages were incorrectly flagged. See step 5 below for information on restoring legitimate email from the Junk folder. Also, it’s a very good idea not to permanently delete suspected junk e-mail instead of moving it to the junk email folder, because there’s a very good chance you’d be automatically deleting messages that are not spam.
The final option is to only accept email from people (or domains – like gmail.com) that you specify (your safe senders list). Only use this option if you know exactly who will be sending you email messages.
- Select the Safe Senders tab. One default setting that you might want to change is the Automatically add people I e-mail to the Safe Senders List, which is turned off by default.
- And finally, select the Phishing tab. Microsoft has included anti-phishing (more info on phishing here filters as a part of Windows Mail. You may wish to place a check in the box labeled move phishing E-mail to the Junk Mail folder, but be sure to check your Junk Mail folder once in a while for false-positives.
- If you find that Windows Mail has incorrectly identified a message as spam, and your settings are such that Junk mail is moved to the Junk folder, use the Not Junk button to restore messages to the Inbox.
This doesn’t explain how to restore a the sender that was reported as junk on MSN Hotmail. How do you do that?
I have lost my not-junk button. I have gone to customize the buttons and it is greyed out. I then remove it and it disappears from any of the lists. I know how to customize a toolbar but this doesn’t seem to be working in Vista Windows Mail. Has anyone seen this problem and how did you resolve it.
Finally it. I was looking for this tutorial a very long time. Thank you very much.
Junk email folder has a red circle with a slash through it. I think it means something is blocked. How do you remove this? Windows Vista.
Same problem as Gene, and since that silly red circle appeared no matter how high I set the junk filter it dumps all into my inbox….
thank you for the help
كيف أشغل ويندوز ميل علا الفيستا (بالتفصيل)…..
وشـــــــــــــــــــــــــكرا ,,,,,
Almost all of my regular email is going into the junk file all of a sudden. I changed security programs but they deny having control over the windows mail – Vista. I have done all the things in the tutorial above but it doesn’t seem to be helping at all.
Bonnie, I am having the same problem, have you found any help?
I have Vista Home Basic with Windows Mail. I’ve subscribed to AccuWeather.com Alert Forecasts since 2004. My ISP has spam filtering so I don’t need the Windows Junk E-Mail feature, and I had disabled it–but just this month it started marking the daily AccuWeather Alerts as “[SPAM]” but leaves them in the Inbox. I have gone through all the sub-menus, and added AccuW to the Safe Senders list, but the pc ignores that. I tried making a new rule but the pc wants me to move the Alerts from the Inbox to a “specified folder.” The Alerts BELONG in the Inbox until I delete them. Any suggestions on how to stop this idiot code?
My junk email folder is catching a number of legitimate messages lately and when I mark them as “not junk” the messages just disappear instead of being delivered to the inbox or even the deleted folder. Can anyone help?