Outlook might have been accidentally marking your emails as spam
Outlook users have been encountering some seriously inconvenient bugs when trying to send emails. There have been numerous reports across social media of Outlook users struggling against one particularly odd bug.
Many users have complained that their outbound mail was being categorised as spam (via The Register). It’s particularly bad timing for Microsoft − the company has also encountered embarrassing issues with Microsoft Teams this week.
Thankfully Microsoft has now fixed the issue − but not before many users were inconvenienced by the outage. The company posted the statement below when it became aware of the issues.
We're investigating a potential issue with Outlook where users may be unable to log in, or send and receive emails. We're reviewing systems data to determine the next troubleshooting steps. Please follow our status page to stay updated: https://t.co/dzOLUdIeK5
— Microsoft Outlook (@Outlook) February 5, 2020
Outlook user based in both the UK and the US seem to have been affected by the issue, seeing their emails either bounce back, or get categorised as spam. This error took place across desktop and mobile services.
Microsoft responded on Twitter referring to “a potential issue”, which meant users were “unable to log in, or send and receive emails”. There was no reference in the tweet to the other issue some users reported on social media − of having their emails flagged as spam repeatedly.
Hey @Microsoft, have you tried turning it off and on again? #outlookdown
— Martijn Rymen (@MartijnRymen) January 24, 2019
Some users put the outage down to changes Microsoft have been making to the spam filter, while others offered helpful IT-Crowd-style advice: “Have you tried turning it off and on again?”
In the company’s response, a Microsoft spokesperson didn’t offer too much specific information on the scale or nature of the outage, but confirmed that everything should be back up and running as normal now.
A Microsoft spokesperson told Trusted Reviews: “We’ve resolved an issue that affected some customers using the desktop client for Outlook.com email. The service is back to running as normal.”
Related: How to redirect your email to a new address
I guess fixing @Outlook spam filter broke the whole application ?#OutlookDown
— Sumit Dhiman- Insider MVP (@sumitdhimanmvp) February 5, 2020
Have you been affected by the Outlook borkage? Get in touch with us on Twitter @TrustedReviews.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
