How to Add an Address or Domain to Safe Senders in Outlook

The junk mail filter built into Outlook, while simple, is very capable and usually sufficient. It is not perfect, though, and a helping hand can do wonders to improve its performance.

One way you can help Outlook achieve better spam filtering accuracy is by adding known senders to its list of safe senders. This makes sure email from these senders always goes directly to your Outlook Inbox, no matter what the junk mail algorithm directs otherwise. In other words, the safe senders list overrides Outlook's standard spam detection filters. You can also whitelist complete domains using the safe senders list.

To add an address or domain to the safe senders list in Outlook:

1. Select Actions > Junk E-mail > Junk E-mail Options from the menu in Outlook.
2. Go to the Safe Senders tab.
3. Click Add.
4. Type the email address or domain name you want to whitelist.
   1. Single address example: heinz@example.com
   2. Complete domain example: example.com
   3. To make sure subdomains are not whitelisted automatically when you add a domain, include the @ sign — for example, @example.com. In this case, mail from heinz@heinz.example.com will not be whitelisted.
5. Click OK.
6. Click OK again.

If you already have a message from the sender you want to add to the safe senders list in your Outlook Inbox (or the Junk E-mail folder), the procedure is even easier:

1. Open a message from the sender (or a sender at the domain) you want to add to safe senders.
2. Select Actions > Junk E-mail > Add Sender to Safe Senders List or Add Sender's Domain to Safe Senders List.