How to fix disappearing emails from safe senders?

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Dear @Matthew Looney,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A Forum!

In Classic Outlook with IMAP, “Safe Senders” only affects Outlook’s Junk filter. If emails are flagged as IMAP deleted or moved by a rule/server filter, they’ll seem to vanish from Inbox yet won’t be in Trash/Junk.

Therefore, you can try these suggestions to see if they can help:

1.In Classic Outlook, Go to View-> Change View-> Hide Messages Marked for Deletion and toggle it. If you do not see Hide Messages Marked for Deletion, it occurs only when we select the email under out IMAP account in the email list. When we select the email under Exchange/Office 365 account, it just shows the Compact, Single and Preview.

Reference: https://xtls-v4.hkg1.meaqua.org/en-us/answers/questions/4529653/hide-messages-marked-for-deletion-option-is-not-th (check the comments)

2.In the Inbox, select Filter > All or try View > Reset View.

3.Turn Focused Inbox off and back on (then move any misclassified message to Focused to train it).

Reference: Focused Inbox for Outlook

4.Repair Outlook profile (if behavior persists on one PC only):

• File > Account Settings > Account Settings > select account > Repair.
• If needed, create a new profile and resync.

5.Additionally, because your mailbox is hosted by a third‑party over IMAP (e.g., IONOS/1&1), delivery and filtering happen on their servers, you may consider contacting their support to review anti‑spam settings and server‑side rules.

I hope this information can help you and please feel free to update to me in comment section.

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If your emails from safe senders are disappearing, it may be due to filtering settings or junk email options in Outlook. Here are some steps you can take to troubleshoot and potentially resolve the issue:

1. Check Junk Email Options: Ensure that Outlook is not set to permanently delete suspected junk emails. You can do this by:
   • Opening the Junk E-mail Options dialog box.
   • For Outlook 2010 and later, go to the Home tab, select Junk, and then Junk E-mail Options. For Outlook 2007 or 2003, go to Tools > Options > Junk E-mail.
   • On the Options tab, make sure the option Permanently delete suspected junk e-mail instead of moving it to the Junk E-mail folder is unchecked.
2. Review Filtering Options: Sometimes, items may not be deleted but filtered out of view. Check your folder view settings to ensure no filters are hiding the emails. To change the view options:
   • In the ribbon, select the View tab.
   • In the Current View area, select View Settings and then Filter. Review the filtering options to ensure they are not set to exclude emails from safe senders.
3. Check Safe Senders List: Make sure that the email addresses of your safe senders are correctly added to the Safe Senders list in Outlook. This can help prevent their emails from being marked as junk.
4. Mobile Device Settings: If you are accessing your email on a mobile device, check the spam settings on that device as well. Sometimes, mobile email apps can have their own spam filtering settings that may affect how emails are handled.

If the issue persists, you may want to contact your email service provider for further assistance, as there may be server-side settings affecting your email delivery.

References:

• Junk e-mail messages are permanently deleted
• Items disappear or are not visible in an Outlook folder