Suspicious emails?

In computer parlance, when you have multiple choices and only one can be active at a time, they're called radio buttons. It's a direct reference to the radios in old vehicles where pushing one of several buttons would change the channel.

So, for this settings screen, these are your three radio button choices under the Security heading. Just as in a old car radio, you can only select one at a time. Clicking any other button turns the previous choice off.

You would want to use choice two or three. Never use the top choice.

For what version of Outlook, you should always have the latest version to keep up on bug fixes and security updates.

The most recent update for the free version of Outlook forced the ad "feature" back on. What look like emails in your Inbox are actually just ads, and will jump you to a website in your browser if you click on it. For quite a while, you could prevent those from showing by just removing/hiding the Other mail box. MS, um, fixed that so the ads always show.

That was the end of Outlook for me. I'm not paying $100 a year just to get an ad free version of Outlook. I went back to the free, open source eM Client. Looks and behaves almost exactly like Outlook.

The free version is in the App Store and is almost identical in appearance to the paid version. They will have the same version number per each update they receive. Version at this time of writing is 16.76.1 . You can always download the latest full version (and older paid releases) directly from MS here.

App Store version:

I wasn't going to install this thing again, but will in order to answer your questions without guessing.

Is it the free web version or the app version that is recommended?

I can't decide that for you, but the full version has more features. I didn't need them for mostly simple send/receive needs.

Exactly how do you remove what looks like emails in your Inbox that are actually just ads?

They are plainly noted as being an ad (icon at the right). You delete them a bit differently than regular emails. You can't click on the ad, then the trash icon on the toolbar since clicking on the "email" will simply cause it to open the ad in your browser. Instead, you hover your mouse over the ad so the trash icon appears next to the Ad icon. Click that to remove the ad without causing it to open.

Exactly where do i find this setting so i can se if it is set right?

Well, there's another change they just recently made. The default now is it's alway on to never download images. There's no longer an option in the settings to decide how you want it to behave.

For any email that includes embedded images, you now have to okay them one at a time. Or at least, that's how the free version works. Click on an email in your Inbox list. Where the body then displays, you'll see this at the top:

Click Download external images to retrieve them. Go to Settings does nothing useful. There are no choices to define:

But again, this is the free version. The options in the paid version of Outlook may be different.

But can these ads be a security threat if clicked on?

Microsoft themselves push these ads. You wouldn't think a company that big would need to resort to such nonsense for additional revenue, but there it is.

Other than that, you would certainly hope Microsoft wouldn't be so stupid as to accept and push ads that have a criminal element. But as John Galt said, clicking a link in an ad does nothing more than open a web site. That's it. There's still nothing that can happen unless the user chooses to do something dumb. Like filling in personal information merely because the site asks for it.

Is it advised to hover your mouse over the ad so the trash icon appears next to the Ad icon - and click that to remove the ad without causing it to open every time they appear?

That's the only way to delete an ad in the free version of Outlook without causing it to load the website linked to it.

Yes that is how it appear on the iMac, but also using a Microsoft PC with Outlook, and I see pictures that are sent to me without downloading them in a small but full version up to the left in the mail. …

No idea. I don't use the Windows version and can't verify, or even describe how it behaves.

RS1250 wrote:

Exactly what can that lead to if such an email is opened, byt nothing is clicked on?

If you have followed the directions already provided, nothing. If you haven't followed all of the directions provided about downloading images, not much.

RS1250 wrote:

Exactly what can that lead to if such an email is opened, byt nothing is clicked on?

Exactly nothing.