Imagine waiting for an important email, never receiving it, and then discovering it in your spam folder or junk folder months later.

It’s probably happened to you, and believe it or not, it’s definitely happened to me before too.

I had to contact a friend of mine who was really good with computers, and she taught me how to whitelist an email address.

Whitelisting emails is a helpful skill.

I make sure to whitelist my favorite email newsletters, any important contacts I expect to hear from, and software programs like DocuSign.

Now, I never miss an important message, putting my mind at ease.

In this blog post, I’ll show you how to whitelist an email address on all the major email service providers, like Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, AOL, Apple Mail, Microsoft 365, and ProtonMail.

A whitelist is a list of approved or safe email addresses to help a spam filter determine whether it should allow delivery.

Whitelists may also be referred to as an "allowlist" or "safelist".

If your inbox is anything like mine, it can be tempting to unsubscribe and delete everything, but that’s not a great plan because some of those emails in your inbox are important like your whitelisted emails.

If I’m on someone's whitelist, then I can guarantee they get my emails, and if I want to make sure I receive emails from a certain person or a company, then I manually add them as a contact to my email whitelist.

Think of whitelist emails as the emails you actually want to receive.

This could be meeting reminders, updates from bloggers you follow, or discounts, coupons, and promotions from your favorite retail store.

Some other reasons why you might want to whitelist emails include:

So whether you use Google's Gmail or another reliable email service provider, please take a minute to learn how to whitelist an email address on the email service provider platform YOU utilize.

Step 1 — Click the gear icon in Gmail and select "See all settings".

Step 2 — Select "Filters and Blocked Addresses" from the top menu options.

Step 3 — Select "Create a new filter".

In Gmail, whitelisting an email actually involves creating a filter.

Step 4 — Add a specific email address or domain name in the "From" field.

The “From” field is where you specify what’s getting whitelisted.

In Gmail, you can whitelist either a specific email address, for example, hello@domain.com, or you can whitelist a specific domain name by omitting everything before the "at" symbol, for example @domain.com

The former will whitelist one specific email address, while the latter will whitelist anyone who is sending emails from a specific domain name.

From there, you don’t need to input any additional information.

Step 5 — Click "Create filter".

You simply click the “Create filter” button at the bottom of the window; next to the blue “Search” button.

Clicking the button brings up a new window.

This is where you actually specify that you're whitelisting an email address or a domain name.

Step 6 — Check "Never send it to spam" in the checkbox.

In Gmail, you do this by checking the “Never send it to spam" box.

Step 7 — Click "Create filter".

Once this information is specified, you click the "Create filter" button again, and this creates the whitelist within Gmail.

Note: The default email provider for Android is Gmail. Follow the above instructions to whitelist emails on your Android device.

Step 1 — Click the gear icon in Outlook and select "View all Outlook settings".

When you click on the gear icon, a drop-down menu will appear.

You'll choose "View all Outlook settings" at the bottom of the drop-down menu.

Step 2 — Select "Mail" from the settings menu.

Step 3 — Choose "Junk email" from the submenu.

Step 4 — Click "Add" under "Safe senders and domains".

Step 5 — Enter the email address that you want whitelisted.

Step 6 — Choose "Save"

This will save your whitelist preferences and ensure that emails that fit the criteria don’t make it to your "Junk Email" folder in Outlook.

Step 1 — Open Yahoo Mail and log in.

Step 2 — Click the gear icon in Yahoo and select "Settings", then navigate and click "More settings".

Step 3 — Select "Filters", then click "Add new filters" to enter the email address you would like to whitelist.

Step 4 — Name your filter first, then add the "From" email address under contacts .

Step 5 — Under "Choose a folder to move to" select "Inbox" from the drop-down menu.

Step 6 — Save your settings.

Step 1 — Log in to your AOL account.

Step 2 — Select "Contacts" from the left sidebar.

Step 3 — Click the "New Contact" icon and add the email address.

Step 4 — Click the "Add Contact" button and you should be all set.

Step 1 — Log in to your Apple Mail account.

Step 2 — Click "Mail" in the menu bar.

Step 3 — Select "Settings".

Step 4 — Click on the "Rules" tab.

Step 5 — Enter a new description in the box.

"Whitelist" is a good descriptor.

Step 6 — Type the email address you would like to whitelist, then select "Inbox" from the drop-down menu.

Step 7 — Click "OK" to save your changes.

Step 1 — Open the Windows Outlook 365 application.

Step 2 — Navigate to "Tools", then select "Rules" from the drop-down menu.

Step 3 — Click on "New Rule".

Step 4 — Name your rule "Whitelist".

Step 5 — Select "From" and enter the email address you would like to whitelist.

Step 6 — Select "Move to" from the drop-down menu, then select "Inbox" from the next drop-down menu.

Step 7 — Click "Save" to save your settings.

Step 1 — Log in to your ProtonMail account.

Step 2 — Click "Settings", then select "Go to settings".

Step 3 — Select "Filters" from the left sidebar.

Step 4 — Click the "Add address or domain" button.

Step 5 — Choose "Allow" from the drop-down menu.

Step 6 — Select either "Email" or "Domain" depending on what you're whitelisting.

Step 7 — Enter the email address or the domain you would like to whitelist.

Step 8 — Click "Add address" or "Add domain" depending on what you selected.