How to Whitelist

An Email Address Successfully

2020 Best Practices

Let’s have a look at how to whitelist an email address to prevent it going to spam!

Take Control of the Emails you Receive!

We all know what it’s like, managing your email account inbox on a daily basis. What is junk mail and what is useful content? Are you bombarded with emails in your inbox but missing emails you are interested in?

What Does it Mean to Whitelist an Email Address?

The meaning of whitelisting an email address is basically to add someone to a safe senders list. By adding an email address to your safe list (or contacts list) you can prevent that person or company’s emails being directed to your spam folder.The process of whitelisting email addresses can be seen as extremely useful from both the perspective of the recipient and the marketer sending out the emails.

What is Being Done About Spam Emails?

We all love our spam filter right? I remember getting thousands of spam emails a day and having to shut down the account because it became unmanageable. Well thankfully these days, through a combination of regulatory acts such as the CAN-SPAM Act, CASL and GDPR, along with better spam filters, a lot less seems to get through.

This is great, but what if you are missing emails because they are being caught by spam filters and being sent to your junk folder?

The CAN-SPAM Act, CASL and GDPR have reduced the amount of unsolicited emails received, and help to ensure that any emails you do receive have the true and accurate sender details and an unsubscribe option clearly available in every email.

Email Whitelisting Best Practices

Email deliverability is the ability to have your emails arrive in the recipient’s inbox. As an email marketer, this is extremely important, you wouldn’t want all your hard work going to waste if subscribers don’t receive your emails. Top email marketing platforms such as AWeber provide a number of features and advise how to improve your deliverability.

If you think AWeber might be a good choice for your email marketing business, you can check out my AWeber review here.

A few examples of ways to improve deliverability if you don’t have time to read the above article:

  • Confirmed opt-in (double opt-in) – prevents fake email addresses being added to your list.
  • Use a domain email rather than a free webmail account to send your autoresponder emails from.
  • Send a plain text alternative message, also called text/HTML multi-part mime format.
  • Avoid ‘spammy’ words.

Avoid attachments, link to content instead.

Although, as explained in the AWeber article linked to above, there are many ways to improve deliverability, the most effective way to guarantee email delivery is to add an email address to a whitelist.

It can be a great idea as an email marketer to make a friendly request for your subscribers to add your email to their whitelist. It isn’t something that should offend anyone, and if it helps your emails reach and hopefully help more people with your valuable content.

On the flip side, if you are a subscriber to someone’s list, by adding someone to your personal address book should not be considered a bad thing to do either. Let’s face it, you wouldn’t want to miss that email that really helps you out and teaches you something, and if you decide that person or company emails no longer interest you, then you can easily remove them at any time and unsubscribe.

Any legally compliant marketer will have their address and a link to unsubscribe on every email, so you don’t have to have any concerns.

How to Whitelist an Email Address

How to whitelist an email address will vary depending on who your email client is. I will cover a handful of the most popular email clients, and then share a great resource with a more comprehensive list.

How to Whitelist an Email Address in Outlook For Office 365

Once logged in to outlook for office 365 on your desktop, it is a simple process to whitelist a particular email address:

  • Open your inbox or whichever folder contains an email from the chosen sender.
  • Select an email message received from sender.
  • Right click on the email address.
  • Select “Add to Outlook Contacts” in the upper right of the screen.
  • In the top left corner of the new contact window that pops up, click “Save & Close”.
  • The sender is now in your personal address book, and all their emails will go directly to your inbox.

You can also choose to specifically add an email address or a whole domain to your safe senders list. To do this:

  • In the “Home” tab at the top of the screen, select the drop-down menu labeled “Junk”.
  • At the bottom, select “Junk E-mail Options”.
  • Choose the second tab, “Safe Senders”.
  • Here you can add the specific email addresses and domains you wish to not be treated as junk.
  • At the bottom, you can click a checkbox to “also trust email from my contacts”.

How to Whitelist an Email Address in Outlook.com

 

Log on to your account at outlook.com.

  • In the top right corner of the page, click on the cog icon for settings.
  • Scroll to the bottom of the settings and click on “View all Outlook settings”.
  • Select “Junk email” from the menu.
  • Scroll down to the “Safe Senders and Domains” sub-menu.
  • Click “+Add” and enter the email you wish to prevent going to your junk folder.
  • It is possible here to also whitelist domains as well as individual email addresses.
  • Just enter the name of the domain rather than the full email address.
  • You can also make mailing list addresses safe, as these can sometimes differ from the specific email address of the sender.
  • Scroll down to the “Safe Mailing Lists” sub-menu.
  • Click “+Add” and enter the mailing list email address you wish to prevent going to your junk folder.

How to Whitelist an Email Address in Gmail

 

 

Log on to your gmail account at mail.google.com.

  • Locate email from chosen sender, and click on the subject line to open the email.
  • Near the top right of the screen, press the button that has 3 vertical dots.
  • Select the menu option “Add <email address> to contacts list”.
  • The email address you selected is now on your email whitelist.

Another option you have is when you log in to your account:

  • Locate and select the gear shaped icon in the top right hand corner.
  • Click settings from the menu.
  • Select “Filters and Blocked Addresses” from the menu choices along the top of the screen.
  • In the middle of the screen, select “Create new filter”.
  • Input the selected mail address or addresses you want to whitelist into the “From” field.
  • Click “Create Filter”.
  • On the next screen when prompted, select “Never send it to spam”.
  • This will ensure delivery of all emails from this sender.

How to Whitelist an Email Address in Yahoo

 

 

 

Log on to your yahoo account at mail.yahoo.com.

  • Locate and select the gear shaped icon in the top right hand corner.
  • Click settings from the menu.
  • Select “Filters” from the menu on the left-hand side.
  • Click “Add” to add a new filter.
  • Input a name for the filter.
  • Under “Sender” select “Contains” from the dropdown menu.
  • Type in the email address in the box to the right of the drop-down menu.
  • At the bottom, where it says “Then deliver the email to the following folder” select “Inbox”.
  • Click Save.

How to Whitelist an Email Address on IPhone

To add an email to your whitelist on an iPhone, simply click on the email and copy the email address. This email address can then be added into your contact list as a new or existing contact.

Instructions for many more specific email clients can be found that is provided by the knowledge base at AWeber’s website here.


I hope you have this guide on how to whitelist an email address valuable. I like a clean and organized inbox, so for me it is important that emails go to the right place. Thanks for checking out this quick guide, hopefully this was helpful to you. Please feel free to drop a comment below.


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