How to access Outlook junk e-mail score?

Sarah 1

We are planning to develop user interventions, using Outlook's default junk e-mail filter scores, for academic research purposes. Microsoft documentation indicates that e-mails receive a final ternary classification (1, 0 or -1) to indicate whether to trust an e-mail or not. However, we would like to know if 1. these are converted probability scores, and 2. if so, how to access these decimal scores.

Faery Fu-MSFT 18,526 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2021-11-30T07:01:59.927+00:00

Hi @Sarah ,

Microsoft documentation indicates that e-mails receive a final ternary classification (1, 0 or -1) to indicate whether to trust an e-mail or not.

What documents did you read? do you mean this document?
If in this case, for Outlook client, you can view SCL in the message header via File>Properties

You can paste the message header into this link to analyze, then you can easily view the SCL.
Sarah 1 Reputation point

2021-12-02T10:52:11.373+00:00

Hi @Faery Fu-MSFT , thanks for your reply!
It is indeed the documentation you linked that I read.
I would like to know if the confidence class labels in Outlook are based on probabilistic scores - i.e., if Outlook uses a classification model that returns values in range [0;1] and uses different cutoff ranges to indicate the spam confidence level.
If so, I would like to know if there is a way to access those probabilistic scores + if there is any explanation for the difference in confidence level.
Do you perhaps know if this is possible?
Faery Fu-MSFT 18,526 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2021-12-07T08:52:25.603+00:00

Hi @ Sarah-9917

I would like to know if the confidence class labels in Outlook are based on probabilistic scores - i.e.,

From you description, that score is mapped to an individual spam confidence level (SCL) that's added to the message in an X-header.
But based on my research, I am afraid currently there is no official document that gives a detailed explanation about the spam scoring mechanism in the Outlook client.

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How to access Outlook junk e-mail score?