All mail I send from my hotmail account either goes to recipients spam or trash

Ted Brown 0 Reputation points
2026-08-06T20:43:44.0566667+00:00

My Outlook.com/hotmail account sends successfully but my messages are being classified as junk or deleted by recipient mail systems. Gmail receives them as spam, iCloud moves them to trash and Outlook.com moves messages sent to myself directly to deleted items.

Ted

Outlook | Web | Outlook.com | Email
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  1. Alice-N 13,250 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2026-08-07T04:34:59.6933333+00:00

    Please note that this is a user-to-user community. As moderators, we have limited access to internal details, but we will do our best to guide you to the right support resources.

    Hi

    Please try these steps:

    1) Test from Outlook.com on the web only

    Sign in to Outlook.com on the web and send a brand-new plain text test message from the browser, not from Outlook desktop or mobile.

    2) Remove the signature and send a clean test message

    Create a new test message with:

    • No signature
    • No links
    • No attachments
    • No images
    • No copied formatting
    • One recipient only, not BCC

    3) Make sure your outgoing profile has a clear display name

    In your Microsoft account/profile and Outlook.com settings, make sure your sent messages show a recognizable display name instead of only the Hotmail address.

    4) Send a message to yourself, then open and reply to it

    Send one clean test message to your own Outlook.com address. Open the message from the folder where it lands, move it to the Inbox if needed, and reply to it.

    5) Ask one trusted recipient to mark the message as not spam and add you to contacts

    Ask one affected recipient, such as someone using Gmail or iCloud, to:

    • Move your message from Spam/Junk/Trash to Inbox
    • Mark it as Not spam
    • Add your email address to their contacts or safe senders list
    • Reply to the message

    6) Review account security before testing again

    Change your Microsoft account password and review recent sign-in activity from Microsoft account security.

    If an account has unusual activity, or if it previously sent mail that looked suspicious, recipient systems may treat future messages more strictly.

    7) Contact Outlook.com support if clean test messages are still filtered

    If the same issue happens after the clean Outlook.com web test, please contact Outlook.com in-product support:

    • Open Outlook.com
    • Select Help
    • Search for the issue
    • If the self-help option does not resolve it, scroll down and select Still need help?
    • Choose Yes

    Please reply with the result of the clean webmail test, especially whether a message with no signature, links, images, or attachments still goes to Spam/Junk/Trash. Also confirm whether this happens only from Outlook.com on the web or also from Outlook desktop/mobile.

    Please tell me how it goes. If the problem persists, please don’t hesitate to reply to this thread and I will be happy to help. Have a lovely day!  

    If the answer is helpful, please click "Yes" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".   

    Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

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  2. AI answer

    2026-08-06T20:43:57.7466667+00:00

    For messages sent to the same Outlook.com account that go straight to Deleted Items, check whether the conversation was accidentally set to Ignore. In Outlook, Ignore moves future messages in that thread directly to Deleted Items.

    Also check these Outlook.com settings:

    1. Open Settings > Mail > Junk email.
    2. Review Blocked senders and domains and remove any address or domain that was blocked by mistake.
    3. Add important senders or domains to Safe senders and domains.
    4. Check for any Inbox Rule that moves mail to Junk or Deleted Items.
    5. If mail is missing from Inbox, check the Other tab, the Junk Email folder, and sort mail by Filter > Sort > Date.
    6. Check whether email forwarding is enabled.
    7. If using connected third-party mail apps, disable IMAP and POP and test again.

    For mail that other providers classify as spam, the documented causes include:

    • Email authentication failure: SPF, DKIM, or DMARC failures can cause legitimate mail to be treated as spam.
    • Poor sender reputation: the sending IP or domain reputation can affect delivery.
    • Message content triggers: excessive links, URL shorteners, scripts, embedded forms, or image-only messages can be flagged.
    • Bulk complaint level: messages can be classified as bulk mail.

    If a specific sender is having delivery problems to Outlook.com recipients, the sender should use Outlook.com Sender Support troubleshooting.

    AI-generated content may be incorrect. Read our transparency notes for more information.

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