Windows 8.1: The Missing Manual

Junk Email

Mail’s Junk filter automatically channels what it believes to be spam into the “Junk E-mail” folder in the folder list.

Tip

You may not have a “Junk E-mail” folder for Web-based email accounts like Gmail and Yahoo. Those online mail services usually have their own spam filters.

The Junk filter’s factory setting is Low, meaning that only the most obvious spam gets sent to the “Junk E-mail” folder. You’ll probably still get a ton of spam, but at least almost no legitimate mail will get mistakenly classified as spam.

You can configure the level of security you want in the Junk E-Mail Options window, shown in Figure 16-14.

Figure 16-14. To visit this dialog box, choose File→Options→“Safety options.” Choose No Automatic Filtering, Low, High, or Safe List Only. You can also opt to permanently delete suspected spam instead of moving it to the Junk E-Mail folder. No matter what setting you choose, though, always go through the Junk E-Mail folder every few days to make sure you haven’t missed any important messages that were flagged as spam incorrectly.

Junk E-Mail Safety Options

Junk E-Mail Safety Options offers six tabs. The Options tab is shown in Figure 16-14. These are the other tabs:

• Safe Senders. Messages from any contacts, email addresses, or domain names that you add to this list are never treated as junk email. (A domain name is what comes after the @ sign in an email address, ...