Need help from Outlook email experts

[tallyho8]

I am getting over 75 spam emails daily from these long fake email addresses. I can block these addresses but it does no good because every day they change to a different address. The fake email addresses they use are usually 40 to 50 digits long like this one: ojwmuxhdtsogl@pqditltybrrty.faortsmingwollams.com

I was wondering if there was any way to block emails from any email address over 35 digits long. I can not change my business email address for many reasons. If I could block these emails it would make my work much faster.

I know I could go on a computer forum for advice but usually get such highly technical advice that I can not usually understand it. I usually get much better, down to earth, advice from my friends here at TBN.

 

[rekees4300]

Setup a "whitelist" to filter all your email. Outlook calls it a "Safe Senders" list. The only emails that will go into your Inbox will be from people in the whitelist. All other emails such as spam will go into your spam folder. Trying to filter based on address size would be an exercise in futility.

How to Automatically Whitelist Contacts in Outlook

 

[RNeumann]

The best filters are done at the ISP level. Your provider should be doing 99% of this.
Their are programs etc that may cut it down. But outlook itself doesn’t have very sophisticated tools to do the job.
Who is your ISP? What OS are you using? Are you willing to switch email accounts? Are you willing to switch email software?

 

[LMychajluk]

^^^What Neuman said.

If you're using an email address provided by an ISP (like a cable provider), that was your first mistake, and there may not be much you can do other than contacting your ISP and complaining. If it is a domain that you control (rather than just an email box given to you by your employer), and your ISP isn't properly filtering your email, maybe you can move your mail domian to another service. I've been using Microsoft's Office365 for the past couple of years for email hosting and it's OK. Before that, I ran my own email server and used GreenwoodData (Premium Cloud Spam & Malware Protection | SpamStopsHere) and they were pretty good for <$100/yr, which may be another option if you don't want to / can't switch ISPs.

 

[/pine]

I would start with your ISP's mail properties and see if they are not already using something like ' SpamAssassin ' ....if they are there should be a settings interface...

if not this may be a solution:
Download SpamAssassin for Outlook from SourceForge.net

Good luck...

 

[tallyho8]

Thanks to all for your quick and helpful replies. I do not want to whitelist my email so it only comes from people that I whitelist because this would block emails from all new customers.
I am on Windows 10 and with Cox Cable. I definitely do not want to change my email address because I have too much advertising out with that address on it.
I followed rekees link on "How to Automatically Whitelist Contacts on Outlook" and learned about some options that I did not know about. Where it says "Choose the level of Junk email protection that you want", it had No Automatic Filtering checked. I changed this to LOW and will see if some of these emails are blocked. If that doesn't work then I might try HIGH and check my JUNK folder to see if I missed any that I wanted.

If these options do not work for me then I will report back and try some more of your advice.

 

[RNeumann]

If it’s a business check out google. We pay google and they handle our email needs for fairly cheap. The email is something like rneumann@our domain/businessname.com Google is known to have some of the best filtering around. It sounds like Cox is killing you- they should have most of the junk filtered. But if you are advertising and giving your email it’s obviously out there and everywhere so you are in an uphill battle.

 

[LMychajluk]

Yeah, if your email address is something like tallyho8@COX.net, then you're kind of stuck. The cable ISPs seem to be extremely lax in email spam filtering and security. The Comcast email account that I got free with my internet access that I never use (and never gave the address to anyone) is filled with thousands of spam emails.

At some point, you may want to bite the bullet and get your own domain and set up your email with a web/email hosting provider separate from who provides your internet access. Then you're not stuck with any ISP - you can then switch ISPs at any time (to FIOS, for example) and not have to change domain or email names. Note that you can connect to multiple email accounts using Outlook, so you could even run in parallel for a while. Just set your default sending account to the 'new' account and add a note in your signature w/ the new email address. People will eventually get the message.

 

[rekees4300]

At some point, you may want to bite the bullet and get your own domain and set up your email with a web/email hosting provider separate from who provides your internet access. Then you're not stuck with any ISP - you can then switch ISPs at any time (to FIOS, for example) and not have to change domain or email names.

Very good advice for those who are serious about their email. :thumbsup: I recommend Fastmail as the provider. Get secure, reliable email hosting – FastMail

 

[hawkeye08]

My Outlook is set so any address other than what is in my contact list is junk. I scan the junk folder a couple of times per week, if I find an email I want to keep, I move it to the inbox and save the address in my contact list. If I recall, I had to login to outlook on web browser to set it that way.. it has been several years since I messed with it, sorry.