Find out what is and isn't spam and how to deal with it in How to deal with spam in BT Email.
To help prevent unwanted and malicious emails, BT Mail offers various tools. These include:
- Spam protection - sends spam emails directly to the Spam folder and can block them in future
- Filters - automatically sort incoming messages to different folders
- Block Addresses - stop email from particular email addresses or domains that you select
- Safe Sender - for email addresses or domains that you select
- Image blocking - which prevents spammers from knowing you opened their email and protects you from viewing images you don't want to see.
Although we have our own systems to detect and manage spam, we also rely on you to tell us what you don't want to receive. We base a sender's reputation on what you tell us about the messages you get.
Our spam filters may therefore occasionally place a legitimate email in your spam folder, possibly because other users have marked similar emails as spam. If you seem to be missing emails or you haven't got an email you were expecting, check the Spam folder first.
Spam
If you receive a spam email, highlight the message and click on Move to > Spam. This will move it to the spam folder, or select the email and click on More > Mark as Spam.
Marking the message as spam won't guarantee that future emails from that sender will be treated as spam. So, for good measure, you should also take a look at 'How to Block Senders'.
Remember, marketing emails aren't treated as spam, so to stop them, click the 'unsubscribe' link at the end of the email.
Not Spam
We recommend that you regularly check your Spam folder, as emails you’re expecting may sometimes end up there. If they do, select the message, click Move to or from in the drop-down list, then select your chosen folder. Alternatively, you can drag and drop the email back into your Inbox.
This tells us that you're happy to receive this type of email, and we’ll eventually send it to your Inbox instead of automatically putting it in your Spam folder.
By default, email in the Spam folder is automatically deleted after a month. This should give you enough time to review your "Spam" emails and determine whether they are actually spam. However, you may wish to do this more regularly by selecting the email message and then clicking on the Trash bin icon to the right of the folder. Or, you can select 'Delete' from the top toolbar. You can also select multiple emails and drag and drop them into the Trash folder.
You can set up an unlimited number of filters that will automatically sort any of your incoming emails to the folders of your choice, including the Spam folder.
- Go to the dropdown arrow under your username in the top right-hand corner of your email account and select Settings. Now, select the Mail option from the left-hand menu. From the dropdown menu, select Rules
- To add new rules, ensure rules are enabled by clicking on Enable Rules button. Then click the Add+ button to create a new rule.
- The Set Rule pop-up window will appear for you to complete.
- When creating a new rule, the rule is activated automatically. If you don't want the folder to become active immediately, you need to deselect the Active option
- Next, you need to set the rule conditions that you wish to apply to your incoming mail. These rules can be applied to the sender, the recipient, the subject line of the email message or to the email message content
- If you have more than one rule you wish to apply to a filter, use the Add and Delete icons on the right-hand side of the pop-up window to expand the selection criteria
- Now, you need to tell BT Mail what action should be taken when it detects any of the conditions you've defined for an incoming email within the Set rule action.
You have a number of options:- Move to folder - offers a drop-down menu of all existing folders in your BT Mail account, including the Trash folder. Select the folder from the list
- Forward to - enables you to forward an email to another email address or person
- Discard - deletes email.
- Finally, click Save. Your new filter will be listed, and you'll see a confirmation message.
Filters will be presented in the "Active filters" list in the order they are created. You can change the order in which the filter rules are applied by selecting the filter and using the "Move up" or "Move down" arrow buttons. To suspend all rules, click the Suspend Rules button.
You can block up to 500 senders. Emails from these senders will be automatically moved to your Spam folder.
- From "Settings", select the "Blocked senders" folder and click on the Add button.
Type in the email address that you want to block and click Save. - The email address will now appear on your list of blocked senders, and you'll see a confirmation message.
- To remove a sender from your blocked senders list, select the email address, click Delete, then Save.
Our Spam filters may occasionally place a legitimate email in your spam folder, possibly because other users have marked similar emails as spam. If you seem to be missing emails or haven't got an email you were expecting, check the Spam folder first.
To ensure emails you want to receive are never sent to your Spam folder, you can add them as a “Safe Sender”.
- Add the email address you want to mark as safe and click Save.
- After a confirmation message, the email address will be added to your list of safe senders.
- To remove a safe sender, click the Delete button.
If you remove an email address from your safe sender's list, you might want to consider adding it to your blocked sender's list.
If you're going to use webmail and an email client (on a handset or other device), we'd recommend using IMAP. The main difference between IMAP and POP is that IMAP always syncs with the BT Mail server, so any changes you make in your email program will also appear in your webmail Inbox - this includes spam.
However, if you're using POP, you can set auto-forwarding rules to keep copies of forwarded emails in your BT Mail Inbox. This rule will also be applied to the contents of your Spam folder.
- Go to the dropdown arrow under your username in the top right-hand corner of your email account and select Settings.
- Now select the Mail option from the left-hand menu.
- From the dropdown menu, select "Auto forward".
- Tick the option to "auto forward all incoming emails" and type in the email address of the destination you want to forward your emails to. If you want to forward your email messages to more than one place, you can add multiple email addresses by separating them with a comma or semicolon.
- To keep a copy of forwarded mail, select the "Keep copy" field.
- Click Save in the tab toolbar.
Email messages that are forwarded are not affected by any auto reply or filter settings you've set. If you have an auto-reply set and subsequently auto-forward your email messages, you will need to ensure that the "Keep copy" field is selected. This will ensure that an auto-reply is sent.
To cancel auto-forwarding, simply untick the "Auto forward all incoming emails" option, remove the destination email address, and click Save.
We're sorry, but we no longer offer spam setting customisation for customers using POP.
Sometimes, email messages can contain attachments with images you may not wish to see. You can manage image receipts in your email messages and choose to block images.
You have four options:
- Always allow images.
- Always block images.
- Always allow images from contacts in your address book.
- Always allow images except when tagged as Spam or in the Spam folder.
To change the blocked image settings, simply select your chosen option and click Save from the tab toolbar.