Currently (February 2026) there is widespread Microsoft email filtering issue that has been impacting the delivery of our communications to certain Microsoft-managed inboxes.
Over the past few weeks, Microsoft has implemented global changes to its email screening processes. In some instances, these updates have incorrectly flagged legitimate emails as spam or phishing. This means that although messages are successfully sent from our platform, they may be quarantined, redirected, or blocked by Microsoft before they ever reach the recipient's inbox.
Who is affected?
This issue primarily impacts recipients using:
@outlook.com
@hotmail.com
Microsoft 365 / Exchange Online accounts used by many schools and organisations.
What this means for our services
If you have sent out newsletters or notices and some recipients cannot locate them, it is likely due to Microsoft’s internal screening. While the email leaves our system without issue, it is handled differently within the Microsoft environment before it can be delivered.
Our proactive response
Reliable communication is a top priority for us. As soon as we identified these changes, our team moved quickly to mitigate the impact on your schools and organisations.
To ensure our communications are recognised as safe and legitimate by Microsoft, we have:
Strengthened email authentication and sender reputation signals.
Refined our sending infrastructure to meet updated industry standards.
Implemented additional protections to improve delivery success rates.
Please note that it will take some time for Microsoft’s global systems to stabilise and for these technical refinements to take full effect.
Recommended actions for your community
While we work on these high-level improvements, there are a few practical steps your recipients can take to ensure they receive your updates:
1. Check Spam, Junk, and Quarantine For Microsoft 365 users, emails may be held in a "Quarantine" area rather than the standard Junk folder. It is worth asking staff or parents to check these locations if a message is missing.
2. Add the sending domain as a 'Safe Sender' (Outlook Web) Recipients can manually trust our communications by following these steps:
Log into Outlook via a web browser.
Click the Settings (cog icon) in the top right.
Select Mail > Junk email.
Under Safe senders and domains, click Add.
Enter the domain used for your newsletters (the part after the @ symbol) and click Save.
3. If using Gmail to read a Microsoft account If recipients access their school or Outlook mail via the Gmail app/web:
Open the email in Spam or Promotions.
Select Report not spam.
Click the three dots (More) and select Filter messages like these.
Create a filter for the sender domain, select Never send it to Spam, and save.
Note: If the message does not appear in Gmail at all, it has likely been blocked by Microsoft before Gmail could retrieve it. In this case, adding the domain as a Safe Sender in Outlook (Step 2) remains the most effective fix.
Further Reference
For more context on this global Microsoft Exchange issue, you can view this report.