Hotmail Junk Email

Un-blocking e-mail addresses in Hotmail

If you are an e-mail subscriber to West Island School and you are using Hotmail as your e-mail service, and you're not receiving the e-mail messages e.g Homework, Weekly Bulletin etc., most likely you have inadvertantly blocked the messages in your mail options.

Hotmail allows you to choose several levels of mail filtering in an effort to help reduce the amount of unwanted spam you receive. However, with this power to filter your e-mail also comes the possibility that you might inadvertantly block messages from senders that you want to hear from, such as West Island School.

This page provides step-by-step instructions on how to set your mail controls so you can reliably receive emails from West Island School.

First, log in to your Hotmail account, go to your inbox view, and then click Options (it's in the upper right portion of the page). You'll see a page that looks like this. (NOTE: some highlights have been added the screen shots to point out specific options.)

On the Options page, click the link to Filters and reporting. That will open the Filters and reporting page as shown below.

We recommend using the above settings. If your Junk E-Mail Filter is set to Low or Standard, you should be able to receive messages from West Island School with no problem, unless you have accidentally BLOCKED messages from West Island School (see below). However, if the Junk Mail Filter is set to Exclusive, then you will need to add two addresses to your Safe List in order to receive messages from West Island School.

Also, we recommend setting your junk e-mail to be deleted "Later" instead of "Immediately". This will give you the opportunity to look in your junk e-mail box, if you ever fail to receive West Island School, to see if West Island School message has been erroneously placed in the junk e-mail box. If you choose the "Immediately" setting, all incoming e-mail that is suspected of being spam will be immediately deleted and you won't be able to check and see if legitimate e-mail (such as West Island School) is being wrongly classified as spam.

To edit your Safe List, go back to the Options page and click on Safe and blocked senders. You'll get a page that looks like this:

Click on the link to Safe senders (highlighted above). You'll see a page that looks like this:

Use the Safe form form to add the following two domains to your safe list:

do-not-reply@wis.edu.hk

wis@wis.edu.hk

(you'll need to add them one at a time)

Type do-not-reply@wis.edu.hk into the box as shown above, then click the Add to list button. Then type do-not-reply@wis.edu.hk into the box, and click the Add to list button again.

Here's how to check to see whether you have inadvertantly BLOCKED messages from West Island School:

Go back to the Safe and blocked senders page and click on Blocked senders.

The Block Senders page will display your Block Senders List. If any of the following addresses or domain names are on the "Block Senders" list, REMOVE them:

do-not-reply@wis.edu.hk

wis@wis.edu.hk

epayments@wis.edu.hk

And finally, be careful!

On the Hotmail screen the "Junk" button is located right next to the "Delete" button, as shown below. When you have read a message from West Island School, and then wish to delete it, if you're not careful you can accidentally click the "Junk" button instead of the "Delete" button. If you do this, our address will automatically be added to your Blocked senders list and all future messages from West Island School will be put in your Junk box or deleted immediately (depending your your settings as described above). Of course this is easy to correct by simply removing our address from your Blocked senders list, but please be aware that this can happen and be careful not to click the "Junk" button when a message from West Island School is displayed.