Make With The Clicky
Finally, the secret code behind the Microsoft Outlook Spam Filter is discovered.
When I started the ‘100 Days Project’ part of the setup was making it easy for people to subscribe to the blog and get it in their inbox every morning. There were a couple of different ways I approached this and eventually just went with a highly regarded service called ‘Mail Poet’ to manage it all. So far, so good, with the exception that some people report getting their morning-daily-dropbear-blog delivered right into their Spam folder.
Central Canadian Correspondent Bernie says, “Every one of your notifications is being diverted into the blackhole of spamdom, despite the first one getting through unmolested.”
How does this happen? Is there some mysterious Spam Filter Logic at play? To answer these questions I went deep undercover, starting with my own inbox. What secrets would I learn? Will I be able to share these secrets before the Spam Syndicate shuts me down? Is Google’s Anti-Spam Artificial Intelligence Neural Network already at work? Have they taken over; is this even me writing or is it Google?
Microsoft 365 Outlook (their domain name was broken when I wrote this, hahahaha) is the tool-of-choice for all of my email needs, but just like our Top Correspondent Bernie, I too have noticed my Spam Filter is filling up more quickly than ever before — it is aggressive, messages that shouldn’t be there are in there, and messages that are clearly SPAM are somehow in my inbox — like OLD FREAKING NAVY is still able to send me unsolicited emails even though I’ve blocked them, reported them for Spam, called them personally, sent strongly-worded cease and desist letters, and have officially boycotted their stores for life. They’re like herpes of the inbox.
Fortunately, I pay a premium to Microsoft that includes some very convenient and highly intelligent tools to help control my Inbox. For example, I can simply right-click a message in my Spam Folder and tell Outlook, “This message is not spam, please deliver all messages from this domain, never block this sender, and please (if it’s not too much trouble) put it into my inbox, not my Spam Filter.” When you are one of the top technology and office productivity companies in the world like Microsoft you can create these high-tech solutions for your clients to make their lives easier; or in Microsoft’s case, you can just have that button make a clicking sound and literally does nothing.
Here is a chunk of code I discovered which appears to run the ‘Outlook Spam Settings’:
10 INPUT “Mark Message as Safe?”
20 IF YES then *CLICKY SOUND*; else *OTHER CLICKY SOUND*
30 GOTO 10
To be fair I needed to look into how Mail Poet was delivering the messages to my subscribers which took me down a rabbit hole of MX (Mail Exchange) settings on my server. This included, but was not limited to, setting up DMARC, DKIM, and SPF DNS records on my Domain Registrar. If you think those acronyms are actually the names of singers in a K-Pop Boy Band I wouldn’t judge you because that’s exactly what I thought (especially Spiff DNS).
Working with my crack server team we were able to make all the records, run a sweet tool to test the Spammy-ness of my messages and got a perfect score 0% Spammy. Checking my inbox I notice a new message in my Spam Folder — it’s from me. Sonuvabitch.
Bernie, I will continue to chase down the SPAM FILTER LOGIC and report back what I find, but in the meantime, I suggest using the following proven method: “Mark message as safe?” YES. *clicky-sound*
