Junk Mail

The move to Microsoft Exchange for Email means that we are now using Microsoft's anti-spam filter instead of Google's filter.  You may find that spam sorting is different from the one to which you grew accustomed.

Junk Mail Folder

First, Google had a folder called "spam."  Outlook calls the folder "junk mail." In each case, our provider attempts to discern what mail is unwanted and what mail you want to see.  At the post office level, we have the ability to set how aggressive we want Microsoft to be in filtering out spam.  We have the setting default to "low" meaning you are likely to see some spam in your inbox, but less likely to get a valid email incorrectly sent to your junk mail folder.  Even so, you may want to check your junk email folder from time to time to make sure you do not miss anything important.

Just like Google did with its spam folder, Microsoft holds junk mail in that folder for 30 days, then deletes it.  So you do not need to worry about manually deleting the messages there.  You should, however, check it regularly to make sure something important does not disappear.

Junk in Inbox

Inevitably, some mail that arrives in your inbox is going to be junk.  When you get such a message, rather than simply deleting it, mark it as "junk".  This helps Microsoft determine what is junk and what is not.  You have the option in Outlook to block a sender or an entire domain.  You can also opt never to block a certain sender, assuring such messages will always arrive in your inbox.

Focused Mail

Beyond messages sent to junk mail, Outlook attempts to discern between important and unimportant mail that goes to your inbox.  It calls important mail "focused" and less important mail "other".   You should see a tab for each category at the top of your inbox.  "Other" mail does not quite meet the classifications for "junk" status, but that Microsoft's AI considers less important or uninteresting for you.

Depending on how you are viewing your mail (via Outlook, Outlook Online, or the Outlook App on your phone or tablet), you may find these two groups mixed together.  On each of your devices you have the ability to turn on or off focused view.  If off, everything simply shows up in your inbox.  If on, less important mail fails in the "other" tab and you are not given an alert when it arrives.  You can make different choices on different devices.

Using Gmail Categories

Many months ago, Gmail rolled out "categories" to the Gmail inbox.  I have not written about it sooner, because I did not particularly like it myself.  But some users have found it useful, so I thought I should discuss it further.

Categories tries to to organize your inbox better into up to five separate categories.  Instead of a single inbox, you will see up to five tabs at the top: Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates, and Forums.  You do not have to select all five, but you don't have the ability to change the names or do much else to control them.

Once enabled, Google will decide on its own what incoming emails belong in which categories.  The idea is that less important email, e.g. stuff from vendors, newsletters, notifications from Facebook or Linkedin, will not clutter your inbox (which is the "primary" tab).  Instead, such items will go into one of the other tabs.  These are emails that you don't consider spam, but don't also consider a top priority.

I am not a fan of categories, primarily because I don't have much of any control over what Google considers important.  As a result, I just have to spend more time going through all five tabs rather than looking at everything in one place.  You do have the ability to create filters, i.e. rules that will force an incoming email into a particular tab.  They work pretty much the same as using filters to force mails into a particular label (i.e. folder) rather than going into your inbox.

Another limitation of the Categories is that if you use another program, say Outlook on your computer, or the built-in mail program on your iPhone or Android, then Categories will not work in those places.  All the stuff is dumped into your inbox.  Therefore, your Gmail inbox and the Gmail inbox on your phone may have different contents.

If, however, you get a great deal of automatic mail that is not quite spam but also is not as important as other things, you may find Categories useful.  You can set it up in Gmail simply by going into "settings" then "inbox".  Select the categories you want to use, and then save.  Gmail will take it from there, auto-sorting all the messages in your inbox.  If you decide you don't like it, just turn it off and everything returns to one inbox.