Most of us receive more email than we can easily handle. And most of us receive spam–unwanted and unsolicited email, usually from people trying to sell things. One way to help with email overload is to keep spam out of your Inbox. Fortunately, Outlook has two built in features that help reduce spam. One is to set up junk mail filtering. The other is to block senders.
Set Up Junk Mail Filtering
Outlook 2007
- Go to the Actions menu.
- Select Junk Mail.
- From the menu that pops out, select Junk Mail Options.
- On the Options tab, select the level of filtering you would like. (I keep mine on Low.)
- Click OK.
Outlook 2010
- Change to the Mail view (if you aren’t there already).
- Go to the Home tab of the ribbon.
- In the Delete section, click on the Junk button.
- From the menu that pops out, select Junk Mail Options.
- On the Options tab, select the level of filtering you would like. (I keep mine on Low.)
- Click OK.
With filtering turned on, junk messages will go to the Junk E-mail folder in Outlook. I recommend that you check this folder regularly. I have found that on occasion, even with the filtering set on Low, emails from friends or from my organization have been sent to my Junk folder.
Block An Email Address
If you regularly receive spam from a specific email address, you can block the sender. To block a sender:
- Right click on the email.
- Select Junk Email.
- Select Add Sender to Blocked Senders List (wording is slightly different in 2010, but similar).
