I have an MSN email account that I access through Outlook and I’ve had it for about 20 years now. All my important communications come to that email. Lately, I’ve been getting an unbelievable amount of junk mail. I used to be able to block the sender and things would be fine for a while. Not so anymore! I emptied the junk email box 3 hours ago and already have over 50 new items in there. I checked to see if I was pwn’d, and I haven’t been.
Is there anything at all I can do? I really don’t want to have to set up a new email account because everyone that’s important already has this address (doctors, automatic payments, etc.) I know this is a longshot, but I figured if anybody knew it would be you guys. Thanks in advance.
So I’ve noticed spam comes in waves. My gmail account will go months and be more or less fine and then in a period of a week I’ll get several dozen spam emails like “HoMe DePoT PoWeR DrIlL WiNnER” and the like. I always report spam and block.
My hotmail account on the other hand. I stopped checking and migrated every important account to gmail because I was getting spamming by the dozen every single day.
I know (sigh). I should probably start migrating to something else, but there are soooo many things that are tied to this email account. I need to find out if I can forward from outlook to something else - that might help catch anything that might fall through the cracks.
You can definitely forward from MSN to something else. I have my ooooold MSN email forwarded to my Gmail. I would take the time to make a whitelist in your MSN acct for all the actual real stuff and just have that forwarded.
I will start this week. It’s one of those things that I’ve known that I should do for a very long time, but just have been putting off because it’s a pain in the butt. I guess how’s the time, huh?
Get a (decent) PAID mailbox somewhere else. PAY FOR IT. There is NO “good, acceptable policies” free mail host on Earth. I won’t recommend any, people have opinions on all of them and most of them are wrong- I’m not here to have that conversation.
Buy and use your own domain. Example: custom domains are supported by some if not all of of the PAID mail providers. That way if you ever move services again, you can take your emailaddress@YourDomain.com WITH you.
Get it operational and set your old mailbox to have an inbox rule that forwards incoming mail ONLY FROM THE STUFF YOU WANT TO SEE to your new mailbox.
Now you’ll have time to switch online services/memberships to the new, proper username/email in your own time.
Once you no longer need that forwarder, destroy the old mail account and let it die forever.
Thank you, great advice!
It probably took me 2 years to migrate fully. I forward most things. Reality is 95% of emails are pointless spam.
Very true!
I check my hotmail account once every couple years. It’s an artifact.
If the mail is going to junk and it is indeed junk then you don’t have to worry about it, the junk will be deleted by MS automatically.
There is no real way to stop the junk though. All you can do is report is as junk so the MS filters get better.
Thanks, that’s kind of what I figured. What a pain in the butt though!
Doe it matter if I report it as phishing from the junk folder?
Not sure as they already suspect it as junk. It might do some reinforced learning for their spamm filter though.
Allright, I’ll keep reporting! It’s not a lot, but honest work
Same. I’ve had this account for years and lately I’ve been getting a metric ton of spam. I’ve never been pwned either.
Worst part is that it doesn’t actually go to junk despite clearly being junk.
Exactly! I thought I may be the only one since the account is so old, but it’s good to hear I’m not alone (no offense intended).
My original MSN account is exactly the same. None of it goes to spam for some reason.
I wonder if due to age of the account we’re just on lots of spam lists. Or it’s missing some newer spam protection.
I’m so glad I’m not alone! I think you’re right and it could be a little bit of both. I took the advice here and reported over 200 today alone - that’s just insane!
