In this day and age, spam protection is no longer an optional extra. The number of junk or malicious emails floating around the world every day are in the billions. Fortunately, email clients do a great job of protecting us from 99% of them.

Sometimes those spam filters do too good a job and block emails that we wanted or were waiting for. Depending on the email, incorrect spam filtering can range from merely annoying to a big deal. Luckily, you can do something about it. When you’re waiting for an email (such as a quote from a moving and storage company!), you can tell your email client to “whitelist” that sender. This means their emails end up in your inbox as expected.

Obviously, there are many different email clients people use. We’ve gone through the major ones to show you how to whitelist in each, with an emphasis on Outlook (as it can have very strict spam filtering).

How to Whitelist an Email Address

We’ll cover the following email provider options:

• Apple Mail (Mobile)
• Gmail (Web)
• Outlook.com (Web)
• Outlook (Desktop)
• Outlook (Mobile)
• Yahoo Mail (Web)

Apple Mail (Mobile)

You can’t directly whitelist emails with the Apple Mail app. However, there is a workaround that acts in much the same way.

1. In the Mail app, navigate to Mailboxes
2. Select Junk
3. Swipe left on the email you want to whitelist
4. Tap More (three dots)
5. Tap Mark
6. Tap Mark as Not Junk

Gmail (Web)

Gmail is one of the most popular mail apps used today, and has robust spam protection. Whitelisting in this app takes a little more effort.

1. From the inbox, click the Cog icon and then Settings
2. Click on the Filters and Blocked Addresses tab
3. Click Create a new filter
4. Enter the email address you want to whitelist (for PODS, it’s austcustserv@auspods.com.au)
5. Click Create filter with this search
6. Click the checkbox against Never send it to Spam
7. Click Create filter

Outlook.com (Web)

Outlook.com is the replacement for the old Hotmail service millions used for their first email address.

1. Click on the Cog icon (Settings) in the top-right corner
2. Click on View all Outlook Settings
3. Click Junk email
4. Under Safe senders and domains, add the email address to whitelist
5. Close the window

Outlook (Desktop)

The Outlook desktop app behaves differently to the Outlook web app when it comes to whitelisting.

1. From the Home tab and click the Junk drop-down arrow
2. Click Junk E-mail Options
3. Click on the Safe Senders tab
4. Click Add
5. Enter the email address you want to whitelist and click OK
6. Click OK again

Outlook (Mobile)

With the Outlook mobile app, you can ensure emails arrive with a “focused inbox”.

1. In the Outlook app, open the email you want to whitelist
2. Tap the three dots in the top-right corner
3. Tap Move to Focused Inbox
4. Tap Move this and future messages in the pop-up that displays, then tap Move

Yahoo Mail (Web)

Yahoo Mail is another web-based mail app with a lot of advanced functionality. Like Gmail, you whitelist emails by setting up a filter.

1. Click on the Cog icon (Settings) in the top-right corner of the inbox
2. Click on More Settings
3. Click on Filters in the left-hand sidebar
4. Add a name for your filter
5. Under Set rules, set the drop-down to “contains”
6. Enter the email address you want to whitelist in the “Type a filter value” field
7. Under Choose a folder to move to, select “Inbox”
8. Click Save

Now you should receive our emails to your inbox and not your junk box.