emails from a sender added to my safe sender list are not going through

Hello,

Could you please provide the specific bounce message so I can check the reason?

Thank you.

Adding a sender to the Safe Senders list only prevents Outlook’s junk filter from moving those messages to Junk Email. It does not affect delivery problems such as soft bounces, which usually occur before the message reaches the mailbox.

To maximize the chance that messages arrive in the inbox:

1. Confirm the sender is correctly added as safe
   • In Outlook/Outlook.com, open Settings > Mail > Junk email.
   • Under Safe senders and domains, select Add safe sender and enter the sender’s email address or domain, then select OK, and Save.
   • In classic Outlook, go to Home > Junk > Junk E-mail Options > Safe Senders tab, select Add, enter the address or domain, and select OK.
2. Check that the sender is not blocked
   • In the same Junk email settings, review the Blocked senders and domains list and remove the sender or their domain if present.
3. Ask the sender (or their admin) to investigate the soft bounces
   • Soft bounces are typically caused by issues on the sender side or intermediate mail systems (e.g., temporary server issues, throttling, reputation problems). The sender’s mail administrator must review their delivery logs and correct the cause; Safe Senders on the recipient side cannot override this.
4. If using Outlook.com and junk mail handling seems incorrect overall
   • In Outlook.com, go to Settings > Mail > Junk email.
   • Temporarily set Incoming mail handling to Strict, save, sign out, sign back in, then set it back to Standard and save again. Allow a few hours for changes to take effect.

If soft bounces continue after these steps, the sender’s mail system or their provider must resolve the underlying delivery issue; Outlook’s Safe Senders configuration cannot force delivery of messages that are not successfully handed off to Microsoft’s servers.

References:

• unblock Outlook emails from a specific sender
• Options > Junk Email
• Add recipients to the Safe Senders List in Outlook
• Filter junk email and spam in Outlook
• Outlook.com doesn't send any emails to junk folder - Microsoft Q&A