For this tutorial I’m going to how to block in the Hotmail email system.
The main difference between filtering and blocking is that filtering allows the email to be received normally (even if filtered to the Trash folder) but blocking does not. When you block an address, the receiving mail server literally rejects it, a copy of the message is never seen anywhere in your account, and usually (but not always) the receiving mail serer will fact spit back an “undeliverable” message back to the sender.
When should you block?
The two main reasons for blocking over filtering is when you want to block a very specific email address, or you want to block a very specific email domain.
Mail filters, as good as they are, don’t always work. The same can be said for spam filters. For example, if you receive mail from Facebook, it doesn’t matter how many times you mash that Junk button because it will always get through. In that instance, you need to add facebookmail.com to your blocked list.
How to block in Hotmail/Outlook.com
1. Gear Menu > More Mail Settings
2. Safe and blocked senders
3. Blocked senders (YES this is a clickable option)
4. Add in an email address or domain, then click Add to list
In the above example, I’m blocking everything from the mail domain facebookmail.com. Let’s say I had a Hotmail account that I know I never used on Facebook, yet someone keeps trying to sign up the email address for a Facebook account over and over again. I can stop the mail notifications for signup attempts completely simply by adding facebookmail.com to the block list, meaning [anything]@facebookmail.com will never get to my Hotmail inbox.
Final notes
The blocked sender feature should not be used as a spam filter, because that’s not its purpose and works very poorly in that respect; it’s very easy for a spammer to “spoof” an email address which is why you don’t use the block list for spam prevention.
Adding any specific mail address or mail domain to the blocked sender list should only be used for mail domains and mail addresses that do not change.
For example, all mail from Facebook is from the domain facebookmail.com and that does not change. All mail from LinkedIn is from linkedin.com and that does not change. All mail from the YouTube video sharing site ends in youtube.com and that does not change. Use the blocked sender feature for specific mail addresses and mail domains that don’t change, and you’re a-okay.
If on the other hand you were looking for filter out mail with very specific subject line words (such as filtering out any email that has “viagra” anywhere in the subject line), that’s when you use filters instead and/or hit the Spam/Junk button.
Also remember that the blocked sender list is not a “learning filter”, such as the Junk filter system in Hotmail is. Once you block an address or mail domain, it’s blocked and stays blocked until you remove it.
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