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Links in HotMail emails: why aren't they active?

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Summary: Links in HotMail emails are often disabled to protect you. I'll look at how to enable Links in Hotmail, and how to work around it even when not enabled.

Links are not active when I receive an e-mail in Hotmail. How can I unsubscribe to a mailing when the "click here" does not work?

HotMail's trying to protect you.

As you know, there's a lot of bogus email out there that includes links to questionable, if not downright harmful, content. HotMail disables links from senders that it doesn't recognize.

So, the trick of course, is to help HotMail recognize the senders you trust.

Or, if you want to live life on the edge, disable the feature completely.

Near the top of the message containing the disabled links, you'll probably see a message like this:

HotMail Disabled Links Warning

Hyperlinks are considered "internet content".

What might not be obvious is that the two statements at the end are click-able:

Enable all message content (once) - click this and the links will be enabled within this message until you close it. So if it's a newsletter you're trying to unsubscribe from (hopefully not mine!), you'd click this, then go click on the unsubscribe link.

Never disable content from this sender - click this and links (and images) from email sent by this sender only will always be enabled. If you subscribe to a newsletter, this is how you might enable its content for this, and subsequent issues.

Now, you can, if you like, turn this feature off completely, but naturally I don't recommend it. Among other things, "internet content" includes images - meaning that items called "bugs" can be included in HTML formatted email that are fetched when you open the email. This can tell the sender that you did, in fact, open the email. In the case of spammers, it tells them that their email has reached a real person and is worth sending even more spam to.

To turn it off, click on the Options link in the upper right of your HotMail screen:

HotMail Options Link

Then click on Mail in the menu on the left:

HotMail Options Menu

Click on Mail Display Settings:

HotMail Mail Options

The, finally, select the setting you want for Display Internet Content:

HotMail Display Internet Content Option

"...this copy/paste technique is the safest of all, because it also bypasses any attempts to disguise URLs..."

Note that for email HotMail considered junk, you'll need to explicitly mark it as "not junk" before links are activated.

With that in mind, there's one more technique that's safer than activating anything, or marking anything you're not totally sure of as "not junk".

For many links, "copy / paste" works well.

Here's a bit of a message displayed in HotMail with the link disabled:

Click on this link example

Now, by clicking, holding the mouse button down, and dragging across the URL in that message to select it, I can then right click on the selected link and click on Copy:

Click on this link with context menu

Having copied that link to the clipboard, you can now go up to the address bar in Internet Explorer and paste it in:

Pasting into Internet Explorer

Resulting in:

Pasted into Internet Explorer

In general this copy/paste technique is the safest of all, because it also bypasses any attempts to disguise URLs - links that look like on thing but take you to something else entirely - which is extremely common in phishing scams.

Related:

More articles about: EMail

Article Useful? Link to it from your own website; just copy/paste this HTML:

Article 10650 | Posted August 25, 2006

Recent Comments

Yesterday I sent a complain about Hotmail links arrived dead in my account and in Gmail arrived active... But I did not the reason. Thanks Leo...

Posted by: Jorge Aguilar at August 29, 2006 08:23 PM

dear sir,
i have a problems in my e-mail address is digitalniraj@sherchan.com .problem likes my e-mail works is msn messager but my inbox doesn't work same e-mail address.

Posted by: niraj sherchan at August 31, 2006 06:54 AM

i want to make an email address but i do not know what to call it i am asking if you could give me some ideas

Posted by: kylie at September 11, 2006 01:33 AM

i have not pc and my job is hard because i have also no time ..........
Hamza Memon
Thanks

Posted by: Hamza at September 13, 2006 07:06 AM

why website hotmail is forbidden - error 403 ?

Posted by: lama at November 14, 2006 08:45 AM

can you please get bebo unblocked in schools! thanks

Posted by: sarah at December 7, 2006 05:38 AM

Dear Friend

I was sutpid waking up at ana early morning , I received a messaage from aa friend which has been held in the Junk Emails, but Hotmail asked me if I have to mark it sfe or unsafe , and I clicked on the wrong '' marke as unsfe " And I los he messge , I would like to ge it back ,; is thaat possible ? nad How?

thank you

Posted by: taleb at June 5, 2007 01:28 AM

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Not possible. Read this article for more:
http://ask-leo.com/messages_deleted_on_hotmail_can_i_get_them_back_somehow.html

Thanks,

Leo

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Posted by: Leo A. Notenboom at June 5, 2007 09:18 AM

In Hotmail Live there is no way to change "mail display settings." How can I activate my links in outgoing messages?

Posted by: John Connell at November 29, 2007 04:52 AM

Thanks Leo for the most informative and easily understandable computer instructions I've ever seen!

Posted by: D-Rock at November 29, 2007 02:38 PM

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