Knowledgebase

If you are sending or receiving emails and they are not being received, one of the first places to check is your spam folder. 

It can be super annoying to not receive an email you've been waiting for - or to find out that an email you've sent has not been received.

Quite often, you can find the missed emails are in the spam or junk folder. 

How does this happen and what's the fix?

Why Do Emails Go To Spam?

There can be many reasons why emails go to spam.

• Most often it can be due to a sensitive spam filter incorrectly filtering your email.
• Sometimes it is due to a poor reputation of the sender - especially if that sender is sending a lot of email.
• Errors: occasionally it can be because the sending domain has not been set up correctly (e.g. incorrect or missing DNS). 
• Rarely it can be due to a software error diverting genuine emails. 
• User Error: If one email gets marked as spam (even by accident), from then onwards, similar emails will go to the spam folder instead of the inbox.

How Can I Stop Emails Going To Spam

Are you 1) the sender or 2) the receiver?

1) I'm The Sender: Emails I Send Are Going To Recipient's Spam

If you are sending emails that are always ending up in other people's spam folder, there are a few things you can check:

• Firstly, if a lot of emails are going to spam, this may indicate a wider issue with your email service provider, so get in touch with them to see if there's something up.
• Check to see if your domain IP has been blacklisted.  A good tool to check this is MXToolbox.
• Ensure your sending domain has been set up properly with e.g. SPF, DKIM and DMARC records.  A good tool to check this is MXToolbox.
• Are the emails that you are sending "spammy" in nature (e.g. sales type emails)?  If so, you should use a bulk mail tool such as a newsletter software instead.
• Are you regularly sending a large number of emails to many recipients?  If so, you should use a bulk mail tool such as a newsletter software instead.
• Check you are following best practices: here is a good article from Google (still applicable, even if you are not a Google user)
• If you have further questions, you should get in touch with your service provider to find out if there is an issue with your email or your domain name.

2) I'm The Recipient: Emails I receive are Going To My Spam Folder

It is recommended that you check your spam folder at least once a week (I check mine daily!) to make sure legitimate emails are not getting caught in the spam net.

If you are the person receiving emails that are incorrectly going to spam, here are some things you can do to help fix the issue:

• Firstly, if a lot of emails are going to spam, this may indicate a wider issue with your email service provider, so get in touch with them to see if there's something up.
• For individual senders, you should usually be able to "tell your email software to behave itself"!  In other words, add their email address to a "white list" or "safe sender list".
• How to get your software to behave depends on what software you use.  Since there are many software versions out there, we have listed the most popular here:

OFFICE 365 / Outlook:  

1. Add the sender to your Safe senders list:
2. At the top of the page, select Settings > View all Outlook settings
3. Select Mail > Junk email
4. Under Safe senders, enter the email address or domain you want to add, and select Add
5. Select Save

Outlook.com (or the Outlook Web App, AKA OWA)

1. Open your Junk Email folder and select the messages you want to keep.
2. From the top toolbar, select Not junk > Not junk (or Not spam > Not spam). You can also open the message and select the It's not junk link at the top.
3. If you've blocked someone by mistake, open your Blocked senders list and select the 'Remove' next to their name.
4. Add the sender to your Safe senders list.

Gmail: Unmark an email as spam