It’s frustrating when legitimate email forwarded to your personal account lands in the Junk box. This tutorial will show you how to rectify the problem by setting up an inbox rule so that legitimate mail gets filtered in to your inbox rather than junk.

*NOTE*  As of 2017, if your email address ends in @hotmail.com, @outlook.com, @live.com or @msn.com (and all country variations) your email will be automatically consolidated into the new outlook.com. To understand more about these changes see this Microsoft article.

As such, this tutorial applies to all Microsoft email accounts that have been updated to the new outlook interface. And if it hasn’t already, your email will be automatically updated to the new Outlook interface when you log in to your email account in step 1 of the tutorial:

Setting up a new inbox rule

  1. Log in to your Microsoft email account

Open a web browser and navigate to https://outlook.live.com and sign in using your email address and password (you may find it automatically logs in).

As mentioned above, you may also find that it automatically updates your account to the new outlook.com interface. If so, simply follow the on screen instructions and 'Getting Started' dialogues until you reach your inbox.

  1. Go to Mail Settings > Options

Click the little cog icon in the top right of the inbox and then hit 'Options'

  1. Within the 'Automatic processing' tab in the left sidebar, click 'Inbox and sweep rules'.

  1. Add a new inbox rule by clicking the '+' icon.

  1. Give the new inbox rule a name

Something relevant like '[Domain] Filter' will suffice.

For example, if I was creating a rule to approve email from this domain, I would call it Ace Digital Design Filter

However, it doesn't really matter what you call it but something relevant is always useful.

  1. Create the inbox rule conditions

Click the first drop down box and select 'It includes these words' > 'in the senders address...'

  1. Specify the word or phrase to filter

This will most likely be the domain you want to approve.

For example, if I wanted to make sure all mail from this domain arrives in my inbox instead of junk, I would type acedigitaldesign.com

Then click the '+' icon to add this condition.

  1. Click 'OK'

  1. Specify the action to take

In the second drop down box under 'Do all of the following', click Move, copy or delete' > 'Move the message to folder...'

  1. Select the Inbox folder and click OK

  1. Click OK at the top of the page to save the rule

You’ve now created an inbox rule in the new Outlook which will identify any incoming mail from the specified domain and ensure it is displayed in the inbox instead of the junk.