Do not click any hyperlinks in incoming emails. That’s the best way to combat against spam and phishing emails.
Not even links in emails from your trusted ones. Because those emails can also be fake.
The best approach is to disable the ability to click the links.
There are different ways in disabling hyperlinks in outlook emails. Each has its pros and cons. My favorite approach is to use Windows group policy.
- Outlook build in Junk E-mail filter
- Use Junk E-mail folder
- Set Windows group policy
- Extra Q&A: What to do when I really want to access the link?
1. Outlook build in Junk E-mail filter
Pros: use outlook as usual
Cons: only outlook identified spam/phishing emails will have hyperlinks disabled. You can still click the hyperlinks on your normal emails.
- Click on Home > Junk > Junk E-mail Options
- select Disable links and other functionality in phishing messages and click Apply
IMPORTANT: Each email account has its own Junk E-mail options. You need to set it for all email accounts.
2. Email rules and Junk E-mail folder
This method sends all emails to Junk E-mail folder and check your emails at Junk E-mail folder first. All hyperlinks are disabled in Junk E-mail folder by default.
You can optionally maintain Safe Senders list for their emails to go to Inbox
Pros: All hyperlinks are disabled
Cons: All emails in Junk E-mail folder are displayed in plain text, not HTML.
- Click on Home > Junk > Junk E-mail Options
- select Safe Lists Only
- click on Safe Senders tab
- uncheck Also trust email from my Contacts and click Apply
- optionally add email addresses as safe sender to deliver their emails to Inbox instead
IMPORTANT: Each email account has its own Junk E-mail options. You need to set it for all email accounts.
3. Set Windows group policy
This method disables the default browser. My preferred method.
So when you click on a hyperlink, the link won’t be activated but instead gives you the following popup message.
Internet Explorer is a thing in the past. Microsoft has moved on to Edge. We should stop using Internet Explorer anyway, especially for security reasons.
Therefore, we will disable Internet Explorer and use it as the default browser.
Pros: use outlook as usual and all hyperlinks are disabled.
Cons: disabling default browser affects the entire Windows. That means double click on a HTML file will not work. You would need to launch your preferred browser and then drag the file to the browser.
Set Internet Explorer as default browser
- go to Settings > Apps > Default apps
- click on Web browser and select Internet Explorer
Disable Internet Explorer for Windows 10 Pro
Note: If you are using Windows 10 Home, please go to the next section
- click Windows Start button, type Edit group policy and hit enter
- At Group Policy Editor screen, select User Configuration > Administrative Templates > System
- then double click on Don’t run specified Windows applications
- select Enabled
- click Show button
- enter iexplore.exe and click OK
- click OK on Don’t run specified Windows applications
Disable Internet Explorer for Windows 10 Home
Unfortunately, Windows 10 Home does not come with Group Policy Editor.
To disable Internet Explorer, we need to modify the registry keys directly.
- run regedit.exe
- go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Policies
- right click on Policies, then select New > Key and enter Explorer
- right click Explorer, then select New > DWORD and enter DisallowRun
- set DisallowRun‘s value to 1
- right click on Explorer, then select New > Key and enter DisallowRun
- right click on DisallowRun, select New > String Value
- enter 1 as name
- enter iexplore.exe as value
That’s it. Restart your computer and hyperlinks in outlook emails should be disabled.
4. What to do when I really want to access the link?
You can right click on the hyperlink and copy it. Then paste it to the browser.
It’s even better to run the browser in a separate virtual machine for safer web browsing. To find out more, check out Safer web browsing with vm on windows 10 hyper-v.
J a P
24 Nov 2020I dont have the Disable links and other functionality in phishing messages” check box
Alan Chan
27 Nov 2020That’s strange. Maybe your version needs to setup differently?
I tested these settings using Outlook for Microsoft 365
PH
27 Dec 2020Doesn’t work for me in Outlook 2013. Not neither with gpedit nor with registry. Hyperlinks in e-mails remain as clickable as ever.
It’s been a wierd story though. Once, suddenly, links in 2013 went unclickable, with URL in flat text below. After some thought I decided this was safer and always went with copy paste into browser where necessary. Then I went to 2007, where the links had always been clickable, and suddenly they weren’t. Instead a failure message came up. But after a while I thought, “that’s probably safer”. Now, back in 2013 the links are suddenly clickable again. And nothing seems to be able to make them not clickable again.
What’s going on?
Alan Chan
15 Feb 2021Sorry, the writeup was based on Outlook 2016. It’s not clear why it isn’t working for Outlook 2013.
Naman Sharma
19 Oct 2021Mujhe apni image ko disable karna hai
Anonymous
31 Oct 2021Great ideas. No clickable links and ransomware becomes a historical reference. Thanks for sharing your ideas.