Keeping your junk e-mail filter updated

Outlook 2007 set to "no automatic filtering" with no blocked senders in the list. But, I'm still getting email placed into the junk folder. I need to turn the filter fully OFF. Way, way too many false positives. Cloudmark is so good I don't ever, ever have to check it's spam folder; it's that good. timh@cruzio.com

Can anyone give me a pointer here? I have a new PC, with Outlook 2007 on Vista-ultimate 64. Every message I download gets put into the junk email folder!! The spam filter settings are set to low, but it doesn't make a difference... also I always use the latest version of the junk email filter from the update service... I was able to find at least one other person with the same problem, so it's not just me:

forums.microsoft.com/.../ShowPost.aspx I don't know where to turn; I use this for my business, and have 3,000 msgs in my junk email box to sort through!!! Thanks for any ideas...!!

I work for an ISP that sends a e-mail to our subscribers at the conclusion of a technical support call. It appears this message is being blocked by the Junk Mail filter built into Outlook and MSMail. How can we address this issue. The message is obviously not spam. The header also shows no reason why it was blocked as spam.

Like so many of the above, ALL my incoming mail is placed in the junk mail folder even though I have marked the sender as safe. This is not an IP issue and the send is not blocked. Reading through the net it seems that it is the sp3 that has caused this. Seeing as we have all paid a handsome amount of money to Microsoft for the use of this programme, perhaps they could actually admit to the problem and tell us how to fix it. It is now having a serious impact on my business. Does anybody hava a fix?

First of all I would like to thank all those that have left an email address available and I have been able to contact. I'm also glad to say that in the majority of the cases I have examined so far the cause of messages being incorrectly marked as junk was not the Outlook filter, but other non related processes that leverage the Junk E-Mail folder. As for NYMike and Bryan CLark's issues: as stated previously for similar customer reports, there could be several reasons as to why the mail gets junked. Without looking at the message itself and at other settings it is hard to make an accurate diagnosis, so I will make a short list things to consider. - Verify that the sender address and/or domain is not in the blocked sender list.If it is, remove it and observe if any changes take place. - If your outgoing message is marked as junk, recommend your users add your domain to their safe sender list. This will automatically make your messages bypass the Outlook junk filter. - Consider that some filtering might also occur on your IP side - it is not uncommon for IPs to provide some antispam protection, and this could have messages moved to the Junk E-Mail folder automatically without Outlook intervention. If you're not sure I recommend contacting your IP to verify. Thanks! Alessio Roic Outlook Program Manager

Dear Alessio Your latest answer seems to repeat what you have said earlier and does not provide a solution. I can confirm that: 1. Everyone on my safe sender list is still being put into the Junk folder. 2. I have checked with my IP and it is nothing to do with them. I would appreciate a solution to this problem that appears to be caused by Microsoft's own SP3! This is seriously impacting my business now. Regards

An

angrey@mail.com

The outlook junk filter is completely awful. If I want to see the items most important to me, that's where I look. Thanks for making it impossible to turn off.

my question is, if i don't mark a legitiate email that went into my junk folder as "not junk", will any future emails from that address also automatically go into the junk folder? thanks dcox

Same problem. I have the Junk Folder settings set to no filtering, yet mail still shows up in the folder. Its not my end. This never happened before SP3. I have also seen that the junk folrder turns itself back on, usually after a MS update. How do we get rid of the "Junky" junk mail folder altogether. Our 3rd part anti spam works great. I dont need this MS stuff.

Same problem. I have the Junk Folder settings set to no filtering, yet mail still shows up in the folder. Its not my end. This never happened before SP3. I have also seen that the junk folrder turns itself back on, usually after a MS update. How do we get rid of the "Junky" junk mail folder altogether. Our 3rd part anti spam works great. I dont need this MS stuff.

Any email sent from services on one server inside our domain (i.e. Dynamics CRM, Dynamics Solomon, SQL, internal Websites, networked scanners) through our Exchange 2003 server, which is a separate server, to internal recipients, is automatically flagged as junk mail until each user checks that message as a "safe sender." Here's a snapshot of the header: Microsoft Mail Internet Headers Version 2.0

Received: from server1.thedomain.COM ([10.100.1.27]) by server2.thedomain.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959); Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:18:29 -0500

Received: from SERVER1 ([127.0.0.1]) by server1.thedomain.COM with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959); Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:18:29 -0500

MIME-Version: 1.0

From: jane.doe@thedomain.com

To: john.doe@thedomain.com

X-Priority: 1

Priority: urgent

Importance: high

Date: 25 Mar 2008 16:18:29 -0500

Subject: Employee Evaluation - Bob Smith

Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii

Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted

John Doe [4:20 PM]:

-printable

Return-Path: jane.doe@thedomain.com

Message-ID: X-OriginalArrivalTime: 25 Mar 2008 21:18:29.0651 (UTC) FILETIME=[C5AD9630:01C88EBD] We have several services (Web apps, device apps) sending mail on behalf of real users within our organization. It is only mail from these apps that Outlook gets confused and doesn't realize it's the same domain. How can this be? Any light you can shed would be wonderous. Ron

Is there a way to enable some sort of logging to see exactly what the junk emai filter is doing? The reason I ask, is that I have a user that is on OL2007, his mailbox sits on an E2K3 server. On, or about, 2/4/2008 messages completely stopped arriving in the Junk Mail folder. I am the network admin here and i have not put any changes in place for any kind of spam filtering. The concern is, that the user, from time to time has a legitimate email get put in the junk mail folder and then "adds to safe sender list", which has always worked. He is used to seeing roughly 10 or so new emails in his junk mail folder daily. As I stated earlier, this stopped completely on 2/4/2008. He has received ZERO email in his junk mail. How can I tell what the junk mail filter is doing? How can I test to see if it is even working? Thanks in advance!

O. Mendez

Mr. Mendez,

on the Outlook side there is no logging available for the Junk Email feature - the main reason being that any such capability would mainly used by spammers to determine what messages are able to bypass the filter.

As for your user issue - I would like to understand the issue more clearly. Is it that the customer is not receiving messages he is expecting either in the Junk folder or in the Inbox? Or that no messages are moved to the Junk Emial folder? If the former, the only thing I would consider checking in Outlook is that the "Permanently delete suspected junk e-mail instead of moving it to the Junk E-Mail folder" checkbox is not selected in the Junk Email Options tab. The other thing you might want to consider doing (as recommended previously) is what our friends and colleagues in Exchange describe on their blog (msexchangeteam.com/default.aspx) and turn on the display of the SCL and PCL values in the message internet properties - that will allow you to determine whether it is Exchange that identifies the email message as junk. Alessio Roic Outlook Program Manager

Mr. Williams, - It is not possible to eliminate the Junk Email folder. The Junk Email folder is one of Outlook "Special Folders" (like Inbox, Calendar, Task, Deleted Items, etc) and as such they can't be turned off. Also consider that numerous 3rd party antispam solution leverage that folder to run their filtering.

- As for the messages being moved to the Junk Email folder when settings are set to "No automatic filtering", this is a series of things that have helped other customers that have reported the same issue: - if a message is from a sender that is part of the blocked sender list, it will still be moved to the Junk Email folder even with the option set to No automatic filtering. Check the blocked sender list content and see if it contains any addresses. - Some users have found they had rules movng messages to the Junk Email folder. This is more of a rarity, but worth checking out anyway. - Last but not least, some 3rd party antispam solutions do leverage the Outlook "Junk Email" folder and move messages there as a result of their message analysis. Provided it is not possible to determine whether it was Outlook or another application junking the message without examining the specific message itself, one easy way to determine if there some filtering running outside Outlook is this: if the messages in the Junk Email folder have the subject marked with a stamp such as "[SPAM]", then a non-Outlook filtering is running on the inbox. This is because Outlook does not stamp messages identified as junk with any sort of label. Let me know if this helps. Alessio Roic

Alessio, none of your suggestions are valid in my situation. 1, none of the mail that makes it to the junk folder are in the blocked senders list. Another observation is that much of the email that ends up in the junk folder is form senders whose email gets through to the inbox regularly, bot before and after the junk email. I only have 3 addresses in the blocked senders, all from china.

As I said in my original post, I have the junk email set to no automatic filtering. However, when email does get into the junk folder, I get an outlook popup that tells me about it. When I click on junk email options, 50% of the time it shows no automatic fileter, bu the other times, Outlook has changed that to LOW by itself. This is a real problem as most of what it catches as junk is actually legit email and it has cost me business.. Any help you can give....