Why is my B2B email landing in Outlook's Promotions tab?

Written by Venkat Nookala · Published 2026-11-01

Since July 2026, Microsoft 365 puts a Promotions tag on mail it identifies as bulk and promotional in nature. People call it a tab. Microsoft's documentation describes a tag, plus a Promotions folder that is used only when the recipient's admin turns on a setting called Bulk moves enabled. The decision is made inside the recipient's Microsoft 365 organization, from signals Microsoft does not publish. We cannot measure the Promotions tag or folder today. This page sets out what Microsoft documents and what you can check from your side.

What Microsoft documents

As of July 2026, all messages identified as bulk that are promotional in nature (regardless of BCL value) automatically receive the Promotions tag. When you turn on the Bulk moves enabled setting in anti-spam policies, bulk mail(which are promotional in nature) that would normally be delivered to the Inbox is delivered to the Promotions folder instead.

Source: Bulk email detection and bulk complaint level (BCL) in cloud organizations, Microsoft Learn, fetched 2026-11-01.

The same section carries a rollout note:

The features described in this section are rolling out, and should be available in all organizations by end of October, including security operations center (SOC) experiences.

Source: Bulk email detection and bulk complaint level (BCL) in cloud organizations, Microsoft Learn, fetched 2026-11-01.

Microsoft announced this to admins as Microsoft 365 message center item MC1279093. Message center needs an admin sign-in, so every statement on this page traces to the public Microsoft Learn pages linked beside it.

The tag and the folder are separate

The tag is applied to mail identified as bulk and promotional. The folder move happens only where the recipient's anti-spam policy has Bulk moves enabled turned on. Microsoft's recommended-settings page lists the value for all three of its policy levels as:

Source: Recommendations for Microsoft 365 security settings, Microsoft Learn, fetched 2026-11-01.

Where each part shows up, per the client table on the bulk-detection page:

Source: Bulk email detection and bulk complaint level (BCL), Microsoft Learn, fetched 2026-11-01.

So a recipient can see the tag in Outlook on the web while the message still sits in the Inbox.

When mail is not tagged or not moved

Microsoft lists cases where mail that would go to the Promotions folder is delivered to the Inbox instead, including:

The bulk sender is in a sender allowlist as described in Create sender allowlists for cloud mailboxes.

The bulk sender is in an accepted domain of the organization. Messages from senders in accepted domains aren't tagged with Promotions.

Source: Bulk email detection and bulk complaint level (BCL) in cloud organizations, Microsoft Learn, fetched 2026-11-01.

It also says recipients' own actions count:

The system learns from user activity in the Promotions folder (moving messages in or out), and remembers the action for future messages.

Source: Bulk email detection and bulk complaint level (BCL) in cloud organizations, Microsoft Learn, fetched 2026-11-01.

And it documents a mail flow rule an admin can create to stop the tag for chosen senders or recipients, by setting the header X-MS-Exchange-Organization-BulkStamping to 0. That header is internal:

The X-MS-Exchange-Organization-BulkStamping header is an internal header that's used only during message transport. The header is removed before the message is delivered to the mailbox, so it isn't visible in the message headers that recipients see. This behavior is by design.

Source: Bulk email detection and bulk complaint level (BCL) in cloud organizations, Microsoft Learn, fetched 2026-11-01.

What you can check yourself

1. Send to a Microsoft 365 mailbox you own and read the BCL. Microsoft adds a bulk complaint level to inbound bulk mail in the X-Microsoft-Antispam header. Open the received message's headers and find BCL:.

   The bulk complaint level (BCL) of the message. A higher BCL indicates a bulk mail message is more likely to generate complaints (and is therefore more likely to be spam).

   Source: Anti-spam message headers in Microsoft 365, Microsoft Learn, fetched 2026-11-01.

   BCL	Microsoft's description
   0	The message isn't from a bulk sender.
   1, 2, 3	The message is from a bulk sender that generates few complaints.
   4, 5, 6, 7	The message is from a bulk sender that generates a mixed number of complaints.
   8, 9	The message is from a bulk sender that generates a high number of complaints.

   Source: Bulk email detection and bulk complaint level (BCL), Microsoft Learn, fetched 2026-11-01.

   Read this as a hint, not the answer. Microsoft's page speaks of "messages with the BCL value 0 identified as bulk", and it applies the tag "regardless of BCL value", so a low BCL does not prove your mail escaped the tag.

2. Open the same message in Outlook on the web. That is one of the two clients where Microsoft says the tag appears. If your test mailbox's organization has Bulk moves enabled turned on, also look in the Promotions folder.
3. Remember it is one mailbox. Your test shows what one organization's settings did with one message. Each recipient's admin decides whether Bulk moves enabled is on and who is allowlisted, and each mailbox learns from what its user moves.

Does authentication keep mail out of Promotions?

Microsoft's bulk-detection page does not list SPF, DKIM or DMARC among the things that decide the Promotions tag. It says this about how bulk mail is identified:

Microsoft 365 assigns a bulk complaint level (BCL) value to inbound messages from bulk senders. The BCL value is added to the message in an X-header. A higher BCL value indicates a bulk message is more likely to exhibit undesirable spam-like behavior. Microsoft uses both internal and external sources to identify bulk mail and determine the appropriate BCL value.

Source: Bulk email detection and bulk complaint level (BCL) in cloud organizations, Microsoft Learn, fetched 2026-11-01.

Authentication tells a receiver who sent the message. It is worth getting right for its own sake, and you can check your records with our domain audit, but a passing audit says nothing about whether Outlook tags your mail. For the same split in Outlook's Junk folder, see Why does Outlook put my email in Junk when SPF, DKIM and DMARC all pass?

What we do not claim

We cannot measure the Promotions tag or folder today, and we do not offer a fix for it. We do not know how Microsoft decides that a message is "promotional in nature"; its pages do not say. Nothing on this page predicts where your next message will land. Humerly's plans are on the pricing page; none of them changes how Outlook classifies your mail.

Questions

Why did my email get the Promotions tag in Outlook?

Microsoft's documentation says that as of July 2026 all messages identified as bulk that are promotional in nature, regardless of BCL value, receive the Promotions tag. It does not publish how it decides a message is promotional.

Is the Promotions tab a folder?

Microsoft describes two things: a Promotions tag, shown in Outlook on the web and Outlook for Windows, and a Promotions folder that is used only when the recipient's admin turns on Bulk moves enabled. Microsoft lists that setting as Off in its Default, Standard and Strict policies.

Do SPF, DKIM and DMARC keep my email out of Promotions?

Microsoft's bulk-detection page does not list them among the inputs. It says Microsoft uses both internal and external sources to identify bulk mail. We have no measurement that ties authentication to the tag.

Can a recipient stop my mail being tagged?

Microsoft documents three routes: an admin can add you to a sender allowlist, an admin can create a mail flow rule that sets X-MS-Exchange-Organization-BulkStamping to 0 for chosen senders, and the system learns when users move messages out of the Promotions folder.

Can Humerly get my email out of Promotions?

No. We cannot measure the Promotions tag or folder today, and we do not offer a fix for it.

Reviewed by Venkat Nookala, last reviewed 2026-11-01.