Minimising and Blocking Spam

To stop high volumes of spam, there are steps that can taken day-to-day to reduce the number of malicious/unwanted emails landing in your inbox. 

Using the Report feature or Junk Email folder

By Reporting or moving spam emails to the Junk Email folder, Outlook can learn to automatically move similar emails to the Junk Email folder, to keep them out of your way. This can be particularly useful for  training Outlook to detect repeated spam emails that unsubscribing from is not offered, like some adverts. One difference between deleting/reporting as Phishing/moving to the Junk Email folder is that if emails stay stored in the Junk folder they can be revisited, in case legitimate emails are incorrectly identified as junk or spam and incorrectly moved out of your inbox.

Report Phishing or Junk emails

A new Report button is available in the top toolbar (ribbon) in Outlook.

You can choose to report Phishing (malicious faked-sender emails trying to get money, logins, or sensitive information out of you) and Junk (unwanted marketing emails). Outlook will process them differently and should remember the content and sender for automatically processing similar emails in future.

Manually blocking senders

Outlook users can manually block messages from specific email addresses so they don't reach your inbox. When an email address is added to the blocked senders list, Outlook automatically moves messages from that sender to the Junk Email folder.

To add an email to the blocked sender list, right-click an email and choose Block > Block Sender. You can similarly choose to Never block sender, or Never block sender's domain (the company part of the email address) for important companies like Dietitians Australia, system service providers, and partners.

Protecting your email address

Protecting email addresses is the best way to avoid spam emails. Email addresses should only be shared when necessary to minimise the amount of places scammers may be able to pull it from. Before allowing any person, organisation, or website access to a professional email address you should take a moment to consider the following questions:

• Is it necessary to share a professional email with this person/organisation?
• Is a professional email the most appropriate email for this person/organisation?
• Is it a legitimate person/organisation that is trustworthy with this information?

If the answer to any of the above questions is no, carefully consider if sharing your contact details is worthwhile. Consider if a shared mailbox address is an appropriate alternative.

Don’t engage with spam

Replying to spam (work or personal), even to tell them you are not interested, can increase the amount of spam you receive and increase the risk of malicious attacks on your computer. When a spammer receives a response to an email, it lets them know that the email is actively monitored, often encouraging them to send through more spam emails, and it gives them more snippets of information about you. Always delete spam or block and report.