Ensure that email messages incorrectly marked as spam are received in the future as valid mail in Outlook


Introduction

Incoming mail for the @utoronto.ca and @mail.utoronto.ca domains is scanned by Exchange Online Protection (EOP).

There have been sporadic reports of EOP generating spam false positives (legitimate messages marked as spam and delivered to the Junk Email folder instead of the Inbox folder). The service will improve its accuracy over time as it learns about our communication patterns, but you can take the following steps to help:

Message Reporting

Use the message reporting function in Outlook or Outlook Web Access (OWA) to correct the categorization of a message.

  1. With the message highlighted, select Report Message from the menubar.

    Home menu bar

  2. Select the desired message category.

    Report message dropdown options

  3. Re-classifying a message as Not Junk will move it to your Inbox folder and will also allow you to provide feedback to EOP.

    Report message copy sent to Microsoft consent

Reports like the above will contribute to the ruleset used, but if you want to guarantee that future messages from the same sender are received in your Inbox, you can:

Add the sender to your Safe Senders list

Outlook on desktop

  1. In Outlook, right-click on the miscategorized message and then select: Junk, then Never Block Sender.

    Message menu options

Outlook Web Access (OWA)

  1. In OWA, click the settings gear icon and select View all Outlook settings.

    Settings panel 

  2. Select Mail, then Junk email and add the email address to the Safe senders and domains section.

    Junk email settings

You can add up to 1,024 addresses or domains to your safe senders list.

Note: Another way to add trusted senders is to add their address to your contacts and make all contacts trusted senders. Under Filters, check Trust email from my contacts. Anyone you add to your contacts list will automatically be a trusted sender.

As always, you are encouraged to check your Junk Email folder regularly for legitimate email messages.

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