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How to Recover Emails Accidentally Reported as Phishing in Outlook
Question details
The user needs to recover an email and unblock a sender after accidentally reporting a legitimate message as phishing in Outlook.
- Product
- Microsoft Outlook
- Device & OS
- not provided
- Scenario
- Managing inbox emails and accidentally clicking the 'Report Phishing' button due to interface shifts during loading.
- Observed behavior
- The email is moved to Junk Email or Deleted Items, and the sender is added to the blocked senders list with no direct undo option.
Before proceeding, check if the accidentally reported email is still visible in your Junk Email or Deleted Items folder. Ensure you have your login credentials ready if you need to access your Outlook web settings.
Unblock the Sender and Restore the Email
Use Outlook settings to remove the sender from your blocked list and manually recover the deleted message.
Because reporting an email as phishing immediately triggers an automated security process, there is no direct undo button. You must manually reverse the effects by adjusting your junk mail settings and retrieving the message.
In Outlook, navigate to Settings (the gear icon) > Mail > Junk Email.
Scroll to the 'Blocked senders and domains' list. Find the email address of the sender you accidentally reported, select it, and remove it from the list.
Under 'Safe senders and domains', add the same email address to ensure future messages are not flagged.
Go to your 'Deleted Items' or 'Junk Email' folder in the left navigation pane and look for the missing message.
Right-click the email and select 'Restore' or 'Move to Inbox'. If it is not in the folder, click on 'Recover items deleted from this folder' at the top of the Deleted Items page to restore it.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Will accidentally reporting an email as phishing get my Outlook account banned?
No, occasional false reports generally do not cause your account to be banned or restricted. However, repeated false reporting in a work or school environment might trigger a review by your organization's security team.
Why is there no undo button when I report an email as phishing?
Outlook's security features process phishing reports immediately to protect users and train spam filters. Because the action triggers a server-side automated process, there is no direct 'undo' command available in the user interface.
What if the reported email is not in my Deleted Items folder?
If the email is missing from Deleted Items, look for the 'Recover items deleted from this folder' option at the top of the folder. If you still cannot find it, your IT administrator may have permanently quarantined it through server-side security policies.
