How can I identify all Microsoft owned inboxes to exclude them from email audiences?
Summary
What email marketers say6Marketer opinions
Email marketer from StackOverflow explains that you can identify if mail is hosted with office 365 via checking spf records which have the include:spf.protection.outlook.com in the spf record.
Email marketer from ActiveCampaign explains that you can exclude email addresses by using segmentation. Create a segment that contains the domains you want to exclude.
Email marketer from Reddit suggests using MX records to identify the mail servers used by Microsoft domains. You can query the MX records for a list of Microsoft domains to find the associated mail servers and filter based on that.
Email marketer from EmailOctopus shares that you can exclude Microsoft inboxes by segmenting your email list and excluding specific domains like hotmail.com, live.com, and outlook.com.
Email marketer from Microsoft Support explains that you can identify Microsoft owned inboxes by using a list of Microsoft domains such as Hotmail.com, Live.com, MSN.com, and Outlook.com.
Email marketer from Reddit shares an advanced tip to use email header analysis. Look for specific patterns in the email headers which might indicate Microsoft-owned infrastructure, even if the domain is not obvious.
What the experts say7Expert opinions
Expert from Email Geeks suggests using MX lookups on the list of domains being sent to in order to identify the ones that point to Microsoft's webmail MX.
Expert from Email Geeks shares that %.<http://olc.protection.outlook.com|olc.protection.outlook.com> is for Microsoft's free webmail and %.<http://mail.protection.outlook.com|mail.protection.outlook.com> is for Office365 hosted emails.
Expert from Email Geeks suggests running a query for domains like 'hotmail%', and repeating for outlook, msn, webtv, etc. to find international variations.
Expert from Word to the Wise mentions that Microsoft SNDS (Smart Network Data Services) provides data about your sending reputation with Microsoft, which indirectly helps in identifying if you're sending to Microsoft-owned inboxes, as SNDS data is specific to Microsoft properties.
Expert from Spamresource provides a reference list of Microsoft, AOL, and Gmail domains and subdomains in a regularly updated list, which can be used to identify a wide range of Microsoft-owned inboxes, including international variations.
Expert from Email Geeks suggests that the list at spamresource should cover 99.99% of what is needed to identify Microsoft-owned inboxes.
Expert from Email Geeks shares that %.<http://mail.outlook.com|mail.outlook.com> is for ms_academic (used by universities).
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from Spamhaus explains that some Microsoft IP ranges are associated with spam activity. Comparing your audience's IP addresses against known spam sources can identify potentially problematic Microsoft-owned inboxes.
Documentation from Microsoft Learn shares a detailed list of all public Microsoft email domains, including country-specific variations. This is intended for developers but can be used to compile a comprehensive exclusion list.
Documentation from PowerDMARC shares that using SPF records is a security mechansim that authorises the sending of emails by particular domains.
Documentation from IETF explains that using MX record lookups is a standard method to determine the mail servers responsible for accepting email messages on behalf of a domain. Programmatically, this can be used to identify Microsoft-owned inboxes at scale.
Related resources0Resources
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