Microsoft Outlook’s spam filters appear to be ‘broken’ as user inboxes became flooded with junk emails on Monday.
Outlook inboxes are reportedly getting up to 50 junk emails per hour, although the cause of the issue is unknown and Microsoft is yet to comment.
One user said he is ‘close to quitting Outlook’, which is already lagging behind Google‘s Gmail in terms of user numbers.
It follows Microsoft’s services crashing due to an outage last month, which among other issues stopped global users from accessing emails.
Frustrated Outlook users took to Twitter to share their problems and ask the Redmond, Washington-based tech giant for an explanation.
Twitter user @bremic9188, a self-described ‘Microsoft fanboy’, posted a shot of his inbox with the caption: ‘Outlook spam filter is garbage.’
Microsoft’s Outlook email platform was just one Microsoft’s service that crashed due to an outage last month
@tomwarren said on Twitter: ‘Have Microsoft’s Outlook spam filters just totally broken today? I woke up to an inbox full of spam and stuff keeps hitting my focused inbox.’
Another Twitter user, @philofthemoore, said: ‘Hi @Outlook Why am I now (overnight) getting spam in my inbox which was previously going to my junk folder?’
Meanwhile @zacbowden said he was ‘close to quitting Outlook’, adding: ‘The amount of junk mail I’m getting these days is absurd.’
And @bremic9188, who describes himself as a Microsoft fanboy, simply said: ‘Outlook spam filter is garbage.’
Another asked Microsoft to ‘turn the junk filter back on’ and claimed they were ‘drowning in spam’.
According to one user based in California, they were averaging about 50 junk emails in their inbox every hour.
Microsoft Outlook’s Twitter account is yet to comment on the matter, although it is replying to individual users asking them to send a direct message for more information.
MailOnline has contacted Microsoft for more information about the cause of the issue.
Only last month, Outlook suffered a ‘networking configuration issue’ that left millions globally unable to access their emails.
The issue also caused outages on other Microsoft services including Microsoft Teams, Xbox Live and SharePoint Online.
‘Turn the junk filter back on I’m drowning in spam’: Multiple Outlook users took to Twitter to share their problems and ask Microsoft for an explanation
Outlook has about 400 million users, but it lags behind Google’s Gmail, which is the most widely used email service with around 1.5 billion active users (file photo)
Outlook was also hit by service issues in June last year, making it inaccessible to some users.
Outlook has about 400 million users, but it lags behind Google’s Gmail, which is the most widely used email service with around 1.5 billion active users.
Outlook was initially launched as Hotmail – a reference to HTML, the language used in the World Wide Web – in 1996, eight years before Gmail launched.
Microsoft CEO Bill Gates bought Hotmail in 1997 and it was integrated with the firm’s other software services under the MSN brand.
In 2012, Hotmail was was reborn as Outlook, which remained the most popular email provider until 2015 when Gmail eventually overtook it.
