Deleting mail rules in Outlook

If you have fallen victim to a phishing scam or accidentally given out your email password, it is a good idea to check if you have unwanted email rules set up in your mailbox.

Even after changing your password and recovering your account, you might discover that the hacker has created an email rule that deletes or forwards all incoming email.

The instructions below explain where to find mail rules and how to delete them. This can only be done in Outlook online because email clients do not have full access to the mailbox settings.

1) Open a browser and go to outlook.hi.is. Sign in if you are not already signed in.

2) Click on the settings icon in the upper right corner of the page and then click "See all Outlook settings" on the bottom of the menu.
The image shows where to find the settings console on outlook.hi.is. Click the gear icon in the top right-hand corner of the page, a settings menu will appear to the right, click "See all settings in Outlook" near the bottom of that menu.

3) This window will appear. Navigate to "Mail" and "Rules." There you can view all email rules that have been set up in your mailbox. If you see a mail rule you don't want, click on the trashcan icon to delete it:
The image shows where to find the mail rule settings in the settings console on outlook.hi.is. Click "Mail" in the list to the left, then "Rules" in the next list, a menu will open showing all the mail rules that have been set up in your mailbox. To the right of a mail rule there is a trashcan icon that you can click to delete it.

4) Press "OK" to confirm:
The image shows a small pop-up window that appears when you have clicked the trashcan icon. The window prompts the user to confirm whether he wants to delete the mail rule , options are "OK" and "Cancel."

5) The rule should now have been deleted and will no longer affect your mailbox. Note that this change is not retroactive and does not affect emails that the rule may have dealt with already, emails that were moved to the Deleted items folder will not automatically be moved to the Inbox.