Additional security features in AOL Mail

As part of AOL Mail's commitment to user safety, we've introduced a series of alert messages that will appear if we think your account is in danger of being compromised. One of the ways we do this is by letting you know if you've set up a Reply-to address. While this feature is used legitimately by AOL Mail customers every day, they are often also exploited by scammers wanting to cause you harm. In addition, we'll alert you if we believe the email you've received is suspected to be spam or a phishing attempt.

Spam alerts

Contact list spam

If we detect that an email address in your contact list is sending you a message that looks like spam, we'll let you know by highlighting it as spam in the inbox. If you know that the email is safe, just click It's Safe and we won't bother you again. For some spam in your spam folder or inbox, we will show helpful messages to let you know why we put the mails there and allow you to take corrective action.

If you have any doubts, click Mark as Spam and the message will be moved into the spam folder and the sender will be removed from your contact list. If you'd like to reverse the action, you can do so by going to your spam folder. Click the email, then click OK to move it into the inbox, and future messages from this sender will be delivered to the inbox.

Unsubscribing When you mark a message from a mailing list as spam and we trust the sender, you will have the option to unsubscribe rather than marking it as spam:

  • Select Unsubscribe and you will no longer receive any messages from the mailing list.
  • Select Report as spam. This will mark the message as spam and move it into the spam folder.
     

Reply-to alerts

If we detect that an email address you receive replies to is anything other than the one you're sending the message from, we'll let you know with a little alert on the top of the message. If you've set up the reply-to function in your email, then there are no worries! But if you didn't set that up, you should secure your account immediately.

Phishing alerts

If we detect that the email address sending you a message looks "phishy," we'll let you know by calling it out. If you know that the email is safe, just click It's safe and we won't bother you again. If you have any doubts, click Report and we'll take care of it from there.

Spoofed mail indicator

What is Spoofed Mail?

When AOL Mail identifies a sender's display name (not the user name) is used with a different email address from the usual email address, a spoofed mail warning will appear at the top of the email message in yellow.

The message will read: Be careful with this message: It might not have been sent by "display name" who usually uses "usual email address." Your reply will be sent to a "different email address."

To take care of this message:

  • Click It's safe. This will remove the warning and will not show again.
  • Click Report to mark the email as spam and move it to the spam folder. Any more emails like this will automatically go to the spam folder.