How to stop new outlook from tagging my email?

Hello Joanna Conrad,

Microsoft’s official documentation states that, as of July 2026, all messages identified as bulk and promotional in nature automatically receive the Promotions tag, regardless of their Bulk Complaint Level (BCL) value. This tag is assigned by Microsoft 365 mail filtering and is not a category created manually in New Outlook.

Your organization’s IT administrator can also enable the Bulk moves enabled setting in the applicable anti-spam policy. When this setting is enabled, promotional bulk messages that receive the Promotions tag and would otherwise be delivered to the Inbox are automatically moved to the Promotions folder.

However, this setting controls the automatic movement of tagged messages rather than whether the Promotions tag is applied. Microsoft does not currently provide an end-user option in New Outlook to disable the tag itself.
If specific trusted senders or recipients should be excluded from the Promotions tag, the documented workaround is for the IT administrator to create a mail flow rule:

The administrator can limit the rule to selected senders, domains, or recipients. This allows the organization to keep Promotions classification enabled generally while excluding trusted messages that should not receive the tag.

Please share the following official article with your IT administrator and ask the administrator to review the section about delivering bulk mail to the Promotions folder and creating the mail flow rule: Bulk email detection | Microsoft Defender for Office 365

Please note that this workaround applies to the Promotions tag only. The Unverified label is a separate security warning. It appears when Outlook cannot fully verify that the message came from the sender shown in the From field. This label is not controlled by the Promotions settings. If legitimate messages are repeatedly marked as Unverified, the sender’s email administrator should check the domain’s SPF, DKIM, and DMARC configuration.

Kind regards,

@Phyllis Kayten said

How can we get Microsoft to take this away. ... Why should my IT manager be the only entity to be able to turn this off.

I understand your frustration, but the way this was implemented for Microsoft Work/School accounts means that the tag is placed on the message by the mail server and there is currently no way for your mail client to remove it.

All I can suggest is that you Vote for and Comment on this Feature Request:

Need Ability to disable "Promotions" labels
https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/7d04142b-f0ce-f111-aad1-7c1e528b5f2c
(You must open the Feedback Portal link and "Sign In" at the top right of the Feedback page before you can vote).

@Joanna Conrad said

New Outlook has started applying tags such as "promotions" or "unverified" to my messages

"promotions"

As far as I can tell, and from my own testing using a bog standard, free, personal Microsoft account, the Promotions tag is only available for Corporate/Exchange accounts.

I see an "EXT" prefix on some of your Subject lines. That's a sure sign of a Corporate/Exchange account. You'll have to talk to your IT to get the "promotions" tags to stop.

"unverified"

Is a different beast. It means that Outlook could not confidently verify the sender identity.

[External Non-Microsoft Site] https://www.suped.com/learn/dmarc/why-are-fully-authenticated-emails-marked-as-unverified-sender-in-outlookhotmail

Unverified Sender indicator when Microsoft cannot authenticate the identity displayed in the From address, or when the authenticated identity differs from that visible address. A standalone SPF or DKIM pass can belong to another domain. A DMARC pass applies to the From domain evaluated at that hop