Email Clients Tutorials
Hotmail Tutorial
Windows Live Hotmail's Junk Folder
Windows Live Hotmail's Junk folder is where Hotmail delivers any emails suspected to be spam ("junk mail"). It is like spam's own inbox; especially since Hotmail's spam filters are so accurate, this allows you to go through your regular emails, and only check the Junk folder once you have a minute. In most cases, it only contains real junk mail.
Using Hotmail's Junk Folder
When Windows Live Hotmail's Junk folder is in bold characters, the folder contains one or more unread emails; the number between brackets on the right of the folder name indicates the actual number of unread emails. Just click on the Junk folder's name or icon to reveal its content.
In the screenshot above, the Junk folder contains 25 unread emails.
Manually Moving Emails to the Junk Folder
Whenever you come across spam in your inbox, Hotmail lets you declare it as junk mail, and will move it to the Junk folder. Taking the time to mark an email as Junk benefit all Hotmail users: since Windows Live Hotmail is notified each time a user marks an email as Junk, spam relays used by this email are quickly blacklisted, resulting in more accurate spam filters.
Since Windows Live Hotmail is owned by Microsoft, who makes Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail, and Office Outlook, users of these programs also benefit from the accuracy of Microsoft's junk mail filters. This is why Microsoft releases about once a month junk mail filter updates for users of any of these email application. These filters reflect the latest trends.
Quickly Emptying the Junk Folder
Notice the faded, downward-pointing arrow icon: clicking this arrow icon tells Hotmail to empty the Junk folder of any emails it contains.
Hotmail will ask you for a final confirmation; once you confirm by clicking OK, any emails in the Junk folder will be permanently deleted, without any chance of recovery.