Add emails to your safe senders list
Make sure important emails reach your inbox by adding trusted senders to your safe senders list.
Follow our step-by-step guides for popular email providers and applications to help prevent emails being incorrectly filtered into spam or junk folders.
Email providers use sophisticated filtering systems to protect users from unwanted messages, but occasionally legitimate emails can be caught by these filters. Adding a sender as a trusted contact helps your email provider recognise messages you want to receive.
Why add a sender to your safe senders list?
Email providers are constantly working to protect inboxes from spam, phishing attempts and unwanted emails. While these filters are essential, they can sometimes mistake genuine emails for unwanted messages.
Adding a sender to your safe senders list helps tell your email provider that you trust emails from that address or domain.
Benefits of adding trusted senders include:
For the best results, we recommend adding trusted email addresses to your contacts or safe sender list before you miss an important message.
How to add an email address to your safe senders list
Select your email provider below for step-by-step instructions.
Please note: Email providers regularly update their settings and menus, so the steps below may vary slightly depending on your device or version of your email application.
Gmail uses filters and contacts to help identify trusted senders. To make sure emails from a specific sender reach your inbox:
Add the sender to your contacts:
- Open an email from the sender you trust.
- Hover over the sender’s email address.
- Select Add to contacts.
Create a Gmail filter:
- Open Gmail and select the settings icon.
- Select See all settings.
- Open the Filters and Blocked Addresses tab.
- Select Create a new filter.
- Enter the sender’s email address in the From field.
- Select Create filter.
- Choose Never send it to Spam.
- Select Create filter to save your changes.
Outlook allows you to add trusted email addresses and domains to your Safe Senders list:
- Open Outlook.
- Select the Settings icon.
- Go to Mail → Junk Email.
- Under Safe senders and domains, select Add.
- Enter the email address or domain you want to trust.
- Select Save.
Emails from approved senders should now avoid being automatically moved to your junk folder.
Microsoft 365 organisations may have additional email security settings managed by an administrator. If you are not receiving emails from a trusted sender, your IT team may need to allow the sender or domain through your organisation’s email security settings.
Apple Mail works with your email provider’s settings, so adding a sender to your contacts is the best way to ensure messages are recognised.
- Open an email from the sender.
- Select the sender’s name or email address.
- Choose Add to Contacts.
- Save the contact details.
If an email has been incorrectly marked as junk:
- Open your Junk folder.
- Select the email.
- Choose Move to Inbox.
To help Yahoo recognise emails from trusted senders:
- Open an email from the sender.
- Select the sender’s name or email address.
- Choose Add to contacts.
- Save the contact.
You can also create a filter:
- Open Settings.
- Select More Settings.
- Choose Filters.
- Select Add new filters.
- Enter the sender’s email address.
- Choose the inbox folder as the destination.
- Save your filter.
To add a trusted sender in AOL Mail:
- Open an email from the sender.
- Select the sender’s email address.
- Choose Add contact.
- Save the contact details.
If emails are being delivered to spam:
- Open your Spam folder.
- Select the email.
- Choose Not Spam.
To add a trusted sender in BT Mail:
- Open BT Mail.
- Select Settings.
- Go to your Safe Senders or Blocked Senders settings.
- Add the sender’s email address.
- Save your changes.
You can also add the sender to your contacts to help improve email delivery.
To help ensure emails from trusted senders reach your inbox, you can add the sender’s email address to your Virgin Media Mail contacts.
- Sign in to your Virgin Media Mail account.
- Open an email from the sender you trust.
- Select the sender’s email address.
- Choose Add to contacts.
- Save the contact details.
If an email has been incorrectly moved to your spam folder:
- Open your Spam folder.
- Select the email.
- Choose Not Spam or move the email back to your inbox.
Proton Mail allows you to add individual email addresses or domains to your Allow list, helping prevent messages from trusted senders from being filtered into your spam folder.
To add a trusted sender:
- Log in to your Proton Mail account.
- Open Settings.
- Select All settings.
- Go to Proton Mail → Filters → Spam, block, and allow lists.
- Select Add address or domain and choose Allow.
- Choose whether you want to add an email address or domain.
- Enter the sender’s email address or domain.
- Select Add address.
Emails from the sender will then bypass Proton Mail’s spam filtering and arrive in your inbox.
Some organisations use additional email security systems that sit between your inbox and the sender. If you are still missing emails, your IT team may need to allow the sender or domain through your organisation’s email filtering system.
