If you’re tired of receiving unwanted emails in your Hotmail (Outlook) inbox, you can block the sender and prevent future emails from getting through.
While there’s no universal “Block” button on all email platforms, you can blacklist email addresses to prevent their messages from reaching your inbox.
In this article, we’ll show you a few tricks for stopping spam emails on Hotmail.com.
How To Block Someone On Hotmail (Outlook)
Method 1: Add Email To Blocked Senders List
To create a blocked senders list,
- Open Outlook, click the Home tab on the top toolbar and locate Junk. Click Junk and scroll down to Junk Email Options.
2. Click Safe Senders and then type an email address that you’d like to block into the space provided and click Add. You’ll see that address appear in the blocked sender’s list.
Repeat this process for any other email addresses you’d like to block.
If you have many email addresses to block, you can use the import file option. Note that you can only add up to 1024 email addresses to your Outlook.com blocked list. If your list of email addresses exceeds this number, try blocking email domains instead of individual email addresses.
Alternatively, if you want to tell if someone blocked your email on Hotmail click the hyperlinked text to our in-depth article.
Method 2: Create A Hotmail (Outlook) Filtering Rule
In Outlook, you can create rules to automatically move messages from specific senders to a certain folder.
This is different than filtering by subject.
Here’s how:
- In your inbox, select the message you want to filter by sender. Then go to the Home tab. Click Rules, click Create Rule.
2. Under When I get e-mail with all of the selected conditions, check the box next to “From people or public group” and choose a contact from your address book or enter an address in the box provided. You can also click Advanced options to specify additional criteria for your rule.
3. In the “Do all of the selected actions” section, check the box next to “Move it to a specified folder”. Choose a folder from your mailbox or create a new one by clicking New Folder… in the lower left-hand corner of this window.
4. Click OK when finished. Click OK again to save your rule. You might get a message asking you to run the rule on messages currently in the inbox. Click ok if you want to take this action.
The first time a rule runs, you must move the messages manually. Once that’s done, the rule will run automatically on incoming messages.
Method 3: Unsubscribe From Mailing List Of Email Sender
If you no longer wish to receive emails from a sender, you can unsubscribe from the sender’s Mailing List by clicking on the Unsubscribe option in the email.
Alternatively, you can click on the unsubscribe link provided at the bottom of an email and follow the instructions to unsubscribe from a Mailing List.
If you don’t see the unsubscribe option in the Hotmail email body, you can also unsubscribe using these steps:
- Select the message and open it. Click File (It’s on the top left side of the email.
- Click on “Properties”.
3. Click on “Internet Headers”.
4. Search for “List-Unsubscribe”.
The next step will vary slightly depending on whether you are using Outlook 2016 or Outlook 2013/2010.
- If you are using Outlook 2010 or 2013, you can click on the link provided (if one exists).
- If you are using Outlook 2016, copy the link and paste it into your browser window. You should be taken to a web page that allows you to unsubscribe from the sender’s list or contact them directly if you have any questions about what you are trying to do.
Method 4: Block All Emails From Unknown Senders
Here’s how to block all emails from unknown senders in Outlook (Hotmail).
- Open Outlook. Go to the Home tab.
- Click Junk then Junk E-mail Options…
3. Click the Safe Senders tab at the top of the window.
4. Scroll down to Blocked Senders then click Add…
5. Enter “*” (without quotes) then click OK.
This should block all emails that are not in your safe senders list.
Another way to block all unknown emails is by blocking top-level domains or blocking emails in an encoding list. You can find both of these options in the international tab.
Eloise Tobler, from Wisetek Store, cautions users to be more vigilant:
“Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the advent of remote working there’s been a sharp rise in the number of email phishing attacks out there – If you receive a suspicious or spammy email it’s important to note open any links in the message and block the sender.”
Blocking Unwanted Emails On Hotmail On Phone (iPhone and Android)
How To Block Unwanted Emails On Outlook(Hotmail) On Android
To block messages from a specific email address, follow these steps:
- Open the message.
- Tap Block <sender’s address>.
- If you want to add the sender to your blocked senders list and move all future messages from them to the Junk folder, select ‘Also move all current messages from <Sender> to the Junk folder”.
- Tap OK.
How To Block Unwanted Emails On Outlook On iPhone
Blocking an email address on the iPhone is easy once you find the block feature. You can access this through the Mail app.
- Open your Outlook app and go to your Inbox.
- Tap on any message from a sender you wish to block.
- Tap on the sender’s name or address at the top of the message and hold briefly until context menu appears in front of you, then select “More.”
- On the More screen, tap Block This Contact, then select Block Contact again when prompted to confirm your choice.
When You Block Someone On Hotmail Will They Know?
No. When you block an email address on Hotmail, Hotmail’s spam filter will stop the message from getting through to you. But the person you blocked will not get any notification or indication that you have blocked them.
If you think the spam filter is not working properly, use our linked article to fix the settings.
