The Junk E-mail Filter in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 is designed to keep junk e-mail messages, also known as spam, from cluttering your Inbox. By default, the Junk E-mail Filter is turned on, and the protection level is set to Low, the setting designed to catch the most obvious spam. Also by default, any message caught by the Junk E-mail Filter is moved to the Junk E-mail folder. You can change any of these Junk E-mail Filter options for the kind of protection that you want.

 Note   While the Outlook Junk E-mail Filter protects against much of the spam sent your way, no filter can catch every junk message. (For more aggressive anti-spam application options, look here.)

• Change the level of junk e-mail protection

• Delete messages instead of moving them to the Junk E-mail folder

Change the level of junk e-mail protection

1. On the Tools menu, click Options to open the Options dialog box.
2. On the Preferences tab of the Options dialog box, under E-mail, click Junk E-mail to open the Junk E-mail Options dialog box.

3. Select the level of protection that you want:

   • No Automatic Filtering   Although this turns off the automatic Junk E-mail Filter, Outlook continues to evaluate messages by using the domain names and e-mail addresses in your Blocked Senders List, and also continues to move messages from blocked senders to the Junk E-mail folder.

      Note   If you want to fully disable the Junk E-mail Filter, you must also remove entries in the Junk E-mail Filter Lists.

   • Low   If you don't receive many junk e-mail messages, or want to filter out only the messages that are most obviously junk, select this option.
   • High   If you receive lots of junk e-mail messages, but do not want to restrict the messages that you see to those from senders on your safe lists, select this option. However, you should periodically review messages moved to the Junk E-mail folder, because some legitimate messages might also end up there.
   • Safe Lists Only   If you receive lots of e-mail messages, you can select this option. Any e-mail message that is sent neither from someone on your Safe Senders List nor to a mailing list on your Safe Recipients List, will be treated as junk.

 Note   Changing the level of protection affects only those mail accounts that deliver and save e-mail messages to your computer. This includes all e-mail accounts that use a Personal Folders file (.pst), including POP3 and IMAP, and Microsoft Exchange accounts that are configured to use Cached Exchange Mode, which use an Offline Folders file (.ost).

 Top of Page

Delete messages instead of moving them to the Junk E-mail folder

1. On the Tools menu, click Options to open the Options dialog box.
2. On the Preferences tab of the Options dialog box, under E-mail, click Junk E-mail to open the Junk E-mail Options dialog box.
3. Select the Permanently delete suspected junk e-mail instead of moving it to the Junk E-mail folder check box.

 Note   When you permanently delete suspected junk e-mail messages, the messages are immediately deleted and are not moved into the Deleted Items folder.

 Top of Page