Spam filter on Hotmail not working

Dear Alberto Arletti

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Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Q&A Community. I understand you’re receiving persistent spam in Outlook.com (Hotmail) despite reporting messages. Please follow these steps: 

1) Use Report > Report phishing 

Open a spam message in Outlook.com and choose Report > Report phishing from the top ribbon. This submits fuller telemetry to Microsoft’s filters and removes the message from your mailbox. 

2) Block at the sender or domain level (server‑side) 

Add abusive email addresses or entire domains under Settings > Mail > Junk email > Blocked senders and domains. Future mail from these sources will be routed directly to Junk. 

Note: Safe Senders/Safe Domains do not override high‑confidence phishing protections; use the Blocked list for persistent sources. 

3) Create Inbox rules to auto‑delete common spam patterns 

In Settings > Mail > Rules, set rules to delete or move messages based on subject keywords (e.g., “invoice due”, “urgent action”) or certain domain patterns (e.g., “.top”, “.cfd”). These rules run automatically as email arrives. 

4) Use Sweep for repeat senders that rotate content 

From the message list, select Sweep to: 

• delete all messages from a sender, 
• keep only the latest message, or 
• delete messages older than 10 days. 

Sweep can automatically apply the same action to future mail and runs daily. 

5) Unsubscribe centrally for legitimate mailshots 

Go to Settings > Mail > Subscriptions and choose Unsubscribe or Block for recognized newsletters or marketing lists detected via List‑Unsubscribe headers. This reduces graymail without mistakenly training the spam filter against legitimate senders. 

6) Train the classifier only when needed 

If a legitimate message is incorrectly classified as junk, select it and choose Report > Not junk. This helps improve future mail delivery accuracy. 

7) Learn and spot spoofing or red‑flag indicators 

Outlook displays warnings—such as a “?” sender image or “via” tags—when authentication is missing or mismatched. Treat these messages as high‑risk and report them as phishing. 

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