How to Whitelist a Domain to Avoid Losing Leads

Learn how to whitelist a domain to avoid losing leads to your email’s spam filter.

What is “whitelisting”?

Whitelisting is identifying certain email addresses (i.e., [email protected]) or complete domains (i.e., @company.com) as “safe” within an email account. This means that a spam filter won’t reject emails from those specific addresses, and won’t hide them by moving them to a different folder and/or deleting them. A whitelist may also be called a “safe list” or a “safe senders list” depending on your email provider, but these all have the same purpose.

Why should I whitelist?

To make sure that emails that are important (i.e., leads, sales, vital information) get to you. An example would be leads from one of Mannix Marketing’s regional guides (ASaratogaWedding.com, LakeGeorge.com, etc.,). When a business gets a lead from one of the site, they are sent an email from [email protected] alerting them about this lead. If [email protected] has not been added to a whitelist, this notification email could be blocked, meaning the business won’t be aware of the new lead. If the domain @mannixmarketing.com had been added to the whitelist, the email account would ensure that the leads are sent directly to the inbox without them becoming trapped in a spam filter.

How do I add a sender to my whitelist?

See below for instructions on how to whitelist a sender based on your email platform.

Gmail

1. Go to Settings (gear icon) > ‘See all settings’.
2. Click on the ‘Filters and Blocked Addresses’ tab.
3. Click ‘Create a new filter’.
4. In the ‘From’ field enter the email addresses or domains you want to whitelist.
5. Click ‘Create filter’.
6. Check ‘Never send it to Spam’ and click ‘Create filter’.

Yahoo! Mail

1. Go to Settings (gear icon) > ‘More Settings’.
2. Click on ‘Filters’.
3. Click ‘Add new filter’.
4. Name your filter. In the ‘From’ field enter the email addresses or domains you want to whitelist.
5. Under ‘Choose a folder to move to’ select ‘Inbox’.
6. Click ‘Save’.

Outlook

1. Click Junk icon.
2. Click Junk E-mail Options.
3. Click Safe Senders.
4. Click Add.
5. Enter emails or domains you want to whitelist [i.e., [email protected]] and additional information if you wish.
6. Click OK to finish.

Mac Mail

1. Click Address Book.
2. Click File.
3. Click New Card.
4. Enter [[email protected]] and additional information if you wish.
5. Click Edit to finish

iOS Devices – iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch

1. On any message, tap the sender and add to either a new contact or an existing contact.

Android Devices – Samsung, Google Nexus, others

1. In the default email client, touch the picture of the sender.
2. Click OK to add to contacts.

Comcast

1. Go to Settings.
2. Under ‘Mail’ click ‘Filter Rules’.
3. Click ‘Add new rule’.
4. Name your filter. Click ‘Add condition’ and select ‘Sender/From’.
5. Choose ‘Is exactly’ from the next condition box.
6. Enter the email addresses you want to whitelist.
7. Click ‘Add action’ and choose ‘Keep’.

Mozilla Thunderbird for PC

1. Click the tools button (3 lines).
2. Click ‘Message Filters’. Name ‘Whitelist’.
3. Choose to apply filter when ‘Manually Run’.
4. Check ‘Getting New Mail’.
5. In dropdown choose ‘Filter after Junk Classification’.
6. Choose ‘From’ in dropdown.
7. Choose ‘contains’ in dropdown.
8. In box enter domains and email addresses you want to whitelist [i.e., [email protected]].
9. Make sure ‘Move Messages’ is selected.
10. Second drop down box – scroll over your email address and select ‘Inbox’
11. Click ‘OK’ and close ‘Message Filters’ window.
12. Find the Junk folder in your folder list and right-click on ‘Junk’ and select ‘Properties’.
13. Put a check mark next to the option ‘When getting new messages for this account, always check this folder’.

Mozilla Thunderbird for Mac

1. Click the tools button (3 lines).
2. Click ‘Message Filters’. Name ‘Whitelist’.
3. Choose to apply filter when ‘Manually Run’.
4. Check ‘Getting New Mail’.
5. In dropdown choose ‘Filter after Junk Classification’.
6. Choose ‘From’ in dropdown.
7. Choose ‘contains’ in dropdown.
8. In box enter domains and email addresses you want to whitelist [i.e., [email protected]].
9. Make sure ‘Move Messages’ is selected.
10. Second drop down box – scroll over your email address and select ‘Inbox’
11. Click ‘OK’ and close ‘Message Filters’ window.
12. Find the Junk folder in your folder list and right-click on ‘Junk’ and select ‘Properties’.
13. Put a check mark next to the option ‘When getting new messages for this account, always check this folder’.

AOL Mail

1. Click on Spam Controls’.
2. In the now appearing box, click ‘Customer Sender’ link and choose the ‘Allow email from …’.
3. Enter domains and email addresses you want to whitelist [i.e., [email protected]].
4. Click click ‘Add’ and ‘Save’.

Earthlink

1. Click ‘Address Book’.
2. Click ‘Manage Domains’.
3. Click ‘Add’ and enter the domains you wish to whitelist.
4. Click ‘Allow This Company (Domain)’.

NetZero

1. Click the Address Book tab on the top menu bar.
2. Click Contacts.
3. Click Add Contact.
4. Enter [[email protected]] and additional information if you wish.
5. Click Save to finish.

Windows Live Hotmail

1. Open an email from the sender that you want to whitelist.
2. Click Add to contacts next to [[email protected]] to finish.

Outlook 2007

1. Right-click on the email you received (in the list of emails).
2. Click Junk E-mail.
3. Click Add Sender to Safe Senders List to finish.

Outlook 2003

1. Open the email message from the sender you want to add to your address book.
2. Right-click Click here to download images in the gray bar at the top of the message.
3. Click Add Sender to Senders Safe List to finish.

Be sure to follow the above instructions and add [email protected] to your whitelist, safe list, or safe senders list today!