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Information About the Safe Senders Option in Outlook

Article ID: 817883 - View products that this article applies to.

SUMMARY

This article describes the Safe Senders option in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003. This article also describes a possible security danger when you use the Safe Senders option.

The Safe Senders option permits you to generate a list of senders that you consider safe to receive e-mail messages from. To add the names of those senders that you trust, click the Safe Senders tab in the Junk E-Mail Options option, and then click to select the Also trust e-mail from my Contacts check box. When you receive an e-mail message from a sender that is from the list of trusted senders, that e-mail message is delivered directly to your Inbox.

Important Security Note When you use the Safe Senders option in Outlook 2003, you can still receive e-mail messages that can do damage to your computer (unsafe messages). Unsafe e-mail messages may contain components (for example, macros or viruses) that may damage your computer, or they may contain unwanted information. You can receive unsafe e-mail messages that misrepresents the actual sender of the e-mail message. For example, the From box of the e-mail message may appear to be from a safe sender, but the actual e-mail message may have been sent by a different (unsafe) sender.

To help make sure that the e-mail messages that you receive are from the Safe Senders list, follow these steps:

Start Outlook.
On the Tools menu, click Options.
On the Preferences tab, click Junk E-mail.
On the Safe Senders tab, click Add.
In the Add address or domain dialog box, type the e-mail address of the person who you want to trust, and then click OK.

Note The e-mail address that you add to the Safe Senders list does not have to be listed in your Contacts list.
Repeat step 5 for each e-mail address (sender) that you want to add to the Safe Senders list.
On the Safe Senders tab, click to select the Also trust e-mail from my Contacts list check box. If you select this check box, you are trusting that the e-mail messages that are sent to you from those that are listed in your Contacts list are safe e-mail messages.
On the Options tab, click Safe Lists Only if you want to receive e-mail messages only from the senders listed in your Safe Senders list or Safe Recipients list.

Note Only e-mail messages from people or domains in your Safe Senders list will be delivered to your Inbox.
Click OK to close the Junk E-mail Options dialog box.
Click OK to close the Options dialog box.

To add a sender directly from an email message that was delivered to the junk email folder, follow these steps:

Go to junk email folder.
Select the email from which you want to trust the sender.
Right-click the email message, point to Junk, and then click Never block sender.

When you do this, you receive a “The sender of the selected message has been added to your safe sender’s list” message.
If you want to trust any sender from that domain, select Never block Sender’s domain.

For more information about safe senders, click Microsoft Outlook Help on the Help menu, type safe senders in the Office Assistant or the Answer Wizard, and then click Search to view the topic.