Spam notification message

I’ve run into this a couple of times now with customers, consequently thought I’d finally get around to writing a blog post. The question is, can spam notifications be sent less than once a day?

What are we talking about. In Exchange online, there is a notification message that is sent to users’ mailboxes periodically, when there are messages marked as spam held within the quarantine process. You can configure this in Exchange online using these directions.

The send end-user spam notifications value, specifies how often to send end-user spam notifications. The default is 3 days; however, you can specify between 1 and 15 days. For example, if you specify 7 days, the notification will include a list of all messages intended for that user within the past 7 days that were sent to the spam quarantine instead.

The question is, can that spam notification message be sent less than once a day? No. I understand the thought process; what if an e-mail is marked as spam and the end user is really in need of that message. They won’t know for 1-15 days before they get the notification letting them know if the message is listed as spam or not.

However, there is a solution; you can train your end users to view the messages themselves instead of waiting for the notification. While there are a few steps for users to learn, it could be a solid solution for users in fear of missing very important messages and having to wait the X amount of days, even 1 day, before they receive the notification of which messages are quarantined.

I hope this helps people understand the options and provide solutions if end users are fearing they are missing important e-mails.