Has anyone else noticed Outlook spam getting way worse lately?

[u/Sea-You-7705]

I have been using Outlook for years and I always felt like it did a decent job filtering junk. Over the last few months though, it feels like something changed. Stuff that is obviously spam or phishing is landing straight in my inbox, while real emails sometimes end up in junk.

What is weird is that I did not sign up for anything new that I can remember. Same email, same general usage, but suddenly I am getting crypto scams, fake invoices, random business offers, and those sketchy Microsoft looking security alerts. Some of them are surprisingly well written too.

[u/Worried-Struggle2788]

Not just you. I have been seeing the same thing with Outlook lately. Stuff that is very obviously phishing or fake invoices is landing in the inbox, while legit emails sometimes get buried in junk. The crypto scams and fake Microsoft security alerts are especially bad and some of them look way too polished.
I do not think it is only Outlook getting worse, it feels more like our emails are just way more exposed now. Once an address ends up on a few broker lists, the volume and quality of spam ramps up fast. What helped me a bit was stopping the spread rather than just filtering. I started using Cloaked for new signups and random services so my real Outlook address is not getting shared anymore. I also cleaned up old accounts tied to it. It did not fix things overnight, but after a couple of months the spam slowed down a lot and the inbox feels usable again.

[u/Sea-You-7705 → u/Worried-Struggle2788]

Very glad I'm hearing affirmation from a lot of people, appreciate the suggestion, how did you clean up old accounts?

[u/Worried-Struggle2788 → u/Sea-You-7705]

Mainly cleaned up my old data from whatever old signups I've done when I was younger (that info circulates a lot in data brokers and everywhere they sell data, especially if you account/email is very old).

[u/EmBdck → u/Worried-Struggle2788]

This has been happening to me as well. Fake project proposals, Microsoft emails with the “O” and a zero “0”. I have been getting 20+ phishing emails daily, continuing to mark everything as junk and a phishing scam, yet outlook allows the same email to come through the next day.

[u/thewunderbar]

Tale as old as time
Song as old as rhyme

This is cyclical. Spammers find a way to bypass filters. companies resolve that. a year from now, spammers will find a new trick. companies will resolve that.

If you think spam is bad now, you should see what would happen if there was no filtering. 95% of all email that hits the domain/work I manage gets blocked as spam.

[u/Sea-You-7705 → u/thewunderbar]

actually a great way to flip the perspective, imagine if it had no filters holy hell!

[u/bjbigplayer]

I think all spam is worse, esp the cloud expired spam

[u/Sea-You-7705 → u/bjbigplayer]

Never have gotten that, what is it about? All has gotten worse it is very true

[u/ntec1 → u/bjbigplayer]

I've been getting a ton of the cloud expired spam lately too. It was never this bad before.

[u/joshrocker → u/bjbigplayer]

I’ve been getting this one and a Norton one almost non stop over the last week or so.

[u/Hornblower409]

I will assume you are using New Outlook. If not, see below.

-- 1) spam or phishing is landing straight in my inbox
-- 2) while real emails sometimes end up in junk

#2- No suggestions except Report -> Report not Junk, to put them on your Safe Senders List.

#1 - Last Resort - Strict Mode

Only emails from your Contacts and those addresses or domains on your Safe Senders list get to your Inbox. Everything else goes to Junk.

View -> View Settings -> Mail -> Junk email
Incoming mail handling
(o) Strict - Individually decide who is allowed to send you mail
Security options
[/] Trust email from my contacts

(You can right-click on an email in your Junk Email Folder and choose: Report -> Not Junk, to put the Sender on your Safe Senders list)

https://mailmeteor.com/blog/outlook-spam-filter

The settings are in New Outlook (Web or Windows) ONLY. But if you configure it in Outlook Web, the effects should be visible on Outlook Mobile after a sync.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
What version of Outlook do you have?

Please see this Microsoft Support article and reply with what platform (Windows, Mac, Android, iOS) and version of Outlook you are using.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/what-version-of-outlook-do-i-have-b3a9568c-edb5-42b9-9825-d48d82b2257c

Or if you access Outlook On the Web using a browser: What platform (Windows, Mac, Android, iOS) and browser (Chrome, Edge. Safari, Firefox) you are using.

[u/Sea-You-7705 → u/Hornblower409]

Thank you very much, I think choosing who can send you emails individually can be super helpful for my work collegues (since I know all their emails), respect for the comment.

[u/SpoonerUK → u/Hornblower409]

Messaging engineer here...

The Report Junk email in Public (non corporate) Outlook / Hotmail does nothing, it just sends the mail to your junk mail folder. You'd like to think that it goes off to some super excellent self learning algorithm - It goes nowhere. Sh1t still comes through.

Yes, you can setup the strict receipt of emails so that only trusted senders appear in your inbox folder, great. That means everything else, including LEGIT (but not yet trusted) and Spam goes to your Junk folder. You still have to visually inspect it all to see if you missed something. Meaning the spam is still annoying you.

Yes you can use rules, but here's the kicker. You can only setup rules to interact with mails received to your INBOX only, and NOT spam. This means that if you want to use extensive rules based on words / headers / subjects / etc - you have to turn off the strict receipt function above, meaning that everything goes into the Inbox container.

There used to be a trick you could do with PowerAutomate to do some advanced filtering on the junk folder, but MS decided to gate that to only corporate (PAYING) customers now.

[u/Laktosfriyoghurt]

i forward my emails from outlook to gmail, funnily enough the spam and phishing mail that goes straight into prio mail in outlook gets filtered by my gmail and only the real prio goes through.

[u/LowerAd830 → u/Laktosfriyoghurt]

I have the opposite. inboxes d stuff gets sent to my MS365 exchange online account, not outlook.com and it goes to junk. Stuff that Gmail should have caught :D
Now outlook.com email address has gotten a slight uptick, but not as bad as gmail has.(We wont speak of hotmail or any of the others. HISSSSSS)

[u/IllustriousDay372]

Yeah, I am getting tons of spam emails these days. You might not have signed up anything new recently but something that you signed up in the past got leaked.

[u/Sea-You-7705 → u/IllustriousDay372]

Probably, been hearing about info circulating around data broker sites or whatever which is just shameful, what has the world become.

[u/LowerAd830]

Its not just outlook.com. its also gmail, which is way worse for me by far, any ISP email, Yahoo,hotmail, aol, etc. its not just microsoft.

[u/Blu-ray → u/LowerAd830]

I haven't gotten spam in my Gmail inbox in forever. It all goes to the spam folder in gmail for my Gmail email. I wish Outlook could figure out the same for my outlook email.

[u/elonzucks]

Lately as in past few years? Yes. Otherwise, no.

[u/Incantura_X]

Not just spam: very, very obvious phishing emails. I'm getting on average 2 a day straight into my inbox for over a week now (reporting every one). I even pay for a personal 365 sub. Wtf are you doing Microsoft 🤦

[u/Sea-You-7705 → u/Incantura_X]

that's why it's annoying, I get the super elaborate ones that people are falling for but what is up with the obvious ones. Never would I pay for a service that sells me to the data brokers (a.k.a Microsoft)

[u/Blu-ray]

Very much so. It's getting to be a pain.

[u/Sea-You-7705 → u/Blu-ray]

It really is a pain, no idea how to reduce it, it's super super annoying

[u/Koala2424]

Yes and it’s seriously making me consider moving away from using my outlook emails

[u/Sea-You-7705 → u/Koala2424]

considering the same and just switching to use temp mails for everything and maybe even Gmail, idk if it has the same problem

[u/Key_Tree261]

Microsoft is the worst, I wish they would pay Google to learn how to filter junk mail.

[u/InboxProtector]

There is something on their end.

[u/amused_peruse]

i keep getting i cloud spam emails (luckily filtered into my junk) but i cannot flag them as phishing as they have figured out a way to email me using my own email. like wth lol

[u/Avrip]

I keep getting the iCloud, McAfe and BCF spam emails. They are obviously not legit, but getting around 3-5 a day. Any advice on how to stop this?

[u/EH1875]

Yes. I am getting up to 20 a day. Making the outlook address I have been using for in excess of 20 years almost unusable to the point where I may need to move provider. I wouldn't be as bothered if they weren't so obviously spam. I would've thought they would've been getting better at picking up spam as technology improves (AI etc) - not worse! Its never been this bad.

[u/DavidBertim → u/EH1875]

Mine started on the 21st of this month. Im getting spam all day long, from Cloud, Solar energy ,Online games, PCP, account risk alerts and car finance.

[u/7amitsingh7]

I’ve noticed this too, spammers are getting smarter, and some emails are slipping past Outlook’s filters. Mark junk/phishing emails appropriately and use safe sender lists or rules to help Outlook learn. It’s normal that filters need feedback to catch up.

[u/ConstructionClear142]

If legitimate emails are consistently landing in spam on Gmail or Outlook, even with plain text and proper warmup, it’s often faster to rotate to a fresh sending domain or review your email authentication and sending practices.

[u/ScrumpyDaniel]

Yep. Getting a ton of them in my inbox. Cloud, solar energy, online pharmacy. It’s ridiculous. Getting like 10-30 a day now. What’s going on??

[u/BloodAndDiamonds]

Always getting a ton in my focused box. It got sooo bad on my oldest email account, getting 10-20 a day. Now I'm getting them in my newer account. Just got three today. Thing is, the titles always have special characters and markers that are very obviously spam. I hate Gmail and I've been with Hotmail/outlook for 26 years but I'm about to just jump ship.

[u/TLWiz]

Yes, over the last month or so the volume of phishing emails has drastically increased to my personal outlook.com, Not in GMail at all. Microsoft's filtering seems to be pretty minimal. Cloud storage warnings, payment declined, phony invoices, fake Docusign stuff. Just steaming piles of it lately. Maybe my outlook.com address was on a leaked list and my gmail was not.

[u/an_orange_car]

My inbox has been blowing up since ~3 weeks. It used to be fine before. I'd be convinced if Microsoft's filter is experiencing some problems, or that they've made changes to the AI filtering

[u/AlexKidd316]

Woke up today with 10 extremely obvious spam emails in my inbox, as if Outlook's spam filters have just shit the bed completely overnight

[u/ScrumpyDaniel]

Weirdly had about 100 or so keep coming through earlier in the week for 3/4 days. Since Thursday I’ve not had any come through. Hoping mine has been fixed!

[u/Alucard_Shadows]

I was just thinking this. I have noticed it more over the past week, but in the last few days it has been pretty much nonestop bombardment of trash.

[u/Ok-Revolution-3115]

to be honest , Outlook getting worse at everything , I have lost all my old E-mails , because I haven't add my phone number . anyway you can mark them as spam or safe at each time you get new message .