Forum Discussion
Proper whitelisting of microsoft.com on dnswl.org
I keep having the issue that system-generated e-mails, e.g. on Trace Reports get classified as spam by the receiving e-mail provider.
The sender address is email address removed for privacy reasons and the e-mails go to my M365 mailbox and are redirected to my external monitoring mailbox with that e-mail provider.
The e-mail provider calculates a score that includes checking the sender's IP address 52.101.69.91 with dnswl.org . Unfortunately, that address is only whitelisted for outlook.com and some secondary domains, but not for microsoft.com. Of course, the issue also occurs with mailto:email address removed for privacy reasons and other IP addresses, so this is an example.
It started to occur around two weeks ago, not sure if the provider changed policies or Microsoft changed the whitelisting; of course the provider refuses to overrun dnswl.org it, e.g. by own whitelisting.
Who at Microsoft could I ask to fix that kind of issues? I don't find any appropriate category in their support menues, M365 support says the cannot help (TrackingID#2603031420001611).
Thanks in advance for any hints, this is my first posting here, so please forgive me, if this is a dumb question.
1 Reply
Hi VolkerM, for system-generated Microsoft 365 mail I would avoid trying to whitelist only by visible From address, because the actual sending infrastructure and envelope sender can vary. The better check is to review the message headers and confirm SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and the sending IP/range used for that exact message. If dnswl.org is involved on the receiving side, the receiving provider usually has to adjust their filtering logic or trust Microsoft's authenticated mail flow. On your side, make sure the reports are coming through Exchange Online normally and that no forwarding or connector is changing authentication results.
