incoming emails from known senders go directly to trash

Hello

Please complete these steps on a computer, not on a smartphone or tablet.

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First, go to https://www.outlook.com and sign in.

Click the gear icon in the top right corner to open Settings.

Under Mail, review the following areas:

Rules

If any rules are listed, delete all of them.

Conditional formatting

If anything is set up there, delete it.

Forwarding and IMAP

If you see any entries or settings you did not create, remove them. Turn off POP and IMAP.

Junk

Review Safe sender and blocked list. Make sure these contacts are not in the blocked list.

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While these may not be necessary, but since you said your account was hacked, I suggest you review these just in case.

Go to https://account.live.com.

Under Your info > Sign-in preferences, review all aliases on the account. If you see any alias you do not recognize, remove it.

Next, go to the Devices section of your Microsoft account and remove any devices you do not recognize.

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Please also do the following in Security section

Change your password

Enable two-step verification

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Go here https://account.microsoft.com/privacy/app-access Click on "Don't allow" for anything you don't recognize.

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Then go to Security > Manage how I sign in and make sure all contact information belongs to you.

On that same page, scroll down to App passwords and remove any existing app passwords.

Also on the same page, click on Sign out everywhere. This is intended to disconnect any active sessions that may still be connected. Please note that this can take up to 24 hours to fully take effect.

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Because the account was hacked, there is likely a rule, filter, or junk setting still moving messages to Trash before Outlook.com receives them, or a server-side rule at the mail provider.

Use these steps to fix it:

1. In Outlook.com, check Junk and safe lists
   1. Select Settings (gear icon) at the top.
   2. Select Mail > Junk email.
   3. Under Blocked senders and domains, remove any legitimate addresses or domains that might have been added.
   4. Under Safe senders and domains, add the addresses or domains that should always go to Inbox, then select OK and Save. Messages from safe senders will not be moved to Junk and are less likely to be filtered incorrectly.
2. Check for rules or filters (including at the provider)
   1. In Outlook on the web, go to Settings > Mail and review Rules (or similar) for any rule that moves messages to Trash or Junk and delete it.
   2. If the mailbox is provided by another service (for example, an ISP like AT&T, or another webmail host) and Outlook.com is just connecting to it, sign in to that provider’s webmail interface and check its filters/rules. Remove any rule that moves messages to Trash. In a similar case, a provider-side filter was moving all mail to Trash before Outlook received it; removing that filter and repairing Outlook fixed the issue.
3. Reset junk handling behavior
   1. In Outlook.com, go to Settings > Mail > Junk email.
   2. Temporarily change Incoming mail handling to a stricter setting if available, save, sign out, then sign back in and set it back to the standard setting and save again. In a similar scenario, toggling this setting and waiting a few hours caused junk filtering to start working correctly again.
4. Clean up after the hack
   1. Review Mail > Forwarding in Outlook on the web and remove any unknown forwarding addresses.
   2. In the Microsoft account security portal, sign out of all sessions and revoke any suspicious app permissions, then ensure multi-factor authentication is enabled.

After removing any malicious rules/filters and adding trusted senders to Safe senders and domains, new messages from those senders should start arriving in the Inbox instead of Trash.

References:

• Filter junk email and spam in Outlook
• Help protect your Outlook.com email account
• All Outlook 2024 email going to Trash instead of Inbox - Microsoft Q&A
• Outlook.com doesn't send any emails to junk folder - Microsoft Q&A
• Hacker set up continuous draft ransomware email - Microsoft Q&A