Upgrades to faculty and staff email protection

University Systems has implemented several email protection enhancements as part of the project to migrate employee email accounts to Exchange Online. These enhancements include alerts and notices on email sent to UVic email accounts. We created this FAQ resource to offer information and support for these changes.

What are the emails that I’m receiving with the subject ‘[M365] Emails sent to you have been blocked’?

When an email is flagged as suspicious, it ends up in email quarantine. You can learn more about email quarantine on Microsoft's website. You will receive an email quarantine notification once a day if email addressed to you has been marked as suspicious and prevented from reaching you.

Why am I receiving them now?

On May 13, email quarantine and other email protection enhancements were implemented for all UVic email accounts. Users on Exchange Online, the cloud version of the Exchange email system used by most UVic students, had already been receiving these quarantine email notifications.

How often are these emails sent?

These emails are sent once per day, if there are emails sent to you that have been quarantined. If you do not receive any quarantined emails, you will not receive this notification.

I don’t want to receive these email quarantine notifications, can I opt out?

There is no way to opt out. However, if you don’t want to see these emails, you can set up a rule to automatically move the emails to a folder. This way, if you don’t receive an email you’re expecting to, you’ll be able to check that folder but you won’t receive these to your inbox. Please contact the Computer Help Desk or your Desktop Support Analyst for assistance with this.

I am using a role-based-email (RBE) - how can I review quarantined emails that were sent to my RBE?

Unfortunately, because RBEs do not have Microsoft accounts, there is no way to review these messages on your own. If you receive a quarantine email notification and the emails appear legitimate, please contact the Computer Help Desk or your Desktop Support Analyst to request release.

What is the 'You don't often get email from' banner that I'm now seeing in some of my emails?

At the beginning of some emails is a message that reads “You don't often get email from … Learn why this is important”. This is called a safety tip, and it is added to certain emails in order to raise your suspicions of a new sender’s email address.

I had been emailing people for many days/weeks/years before – why am I getting the safety tip now?

On May 13, the safety tip and other email protection enhancements were implemented for all email accounts. This was a 'fresh start', so the system would not remember the senders you had emailed before May 13. But as the system identifies the sender, the banner should disappear.

I don’t want to see this safety tip sender banner, can I opt out?

You can't turn off this safety tip. However, as you correspond with the senders, the system should recognize the sender and the safety tip should go away. If you correspond with a new sender, however, the banner will show up again.

Safety tips are filling up my email previews and preventing me from quickly scanning my messages. How can I still read the preview?

The first option is to increase your Outlook reading pane size to read the text after the safety tip.

To change the size of the reading pane, rest the mouse pointer on the border between the reading pane and the message list, and then drag the border to right or left. This will increase the space used by the reading pane, and thus show more text from the body of the email.

You can also decrease the font size under settings or preferences to show more text that comes after the safety tip.

Depending on your version of Outlook, you may also be able to increase the number of lines in the email preview. See Microsoft’s documentation on how to configure the email preview reading pane. This will provide more options for Outlook. Other mail applications will have similar options for customizing the message list preview.

I received a safety tip for a legitimate email from someone I know. Can you make the safety tip go away for this safe sender?

You can follow Microsoft's instructions on how to add the sender to your safe senders list or contacts in Outlook, and you will not see a safety tip for this sender.

Where can I see more information about this and the other email protections?

Please see our Microsoft 365 email security page for more information.