Microsoft Cracks Down on Reply All Email Storms with New Office 365 Feature
Microsoft has introduced a new feature to prevent 'reply all' email storms that can bring down an email system. The new feature, called Reply All Storm Protection, is designed for Office 365 users and monitors potential email storms by detecting when 10 reply-all responses are sent to over 5,000 recipients within a 60-minute period.
If this condition is met, subsequent replies to the email thread will be blocked for four hours. This will prevent a large number of emails from being sent in response to a single message, which can cause an email system meltdown.
When the block happens, Office 365 users will receive feedback that their reply wasn't sent because 'the conversation is too busy with too many people'. They are advised not to resend the email and to consider sending it to a smaller number of recipients instead.
The goal of this feature is to prevent email storms from happening in the first place, not just for businesses but for all email users. Microsoft will continue to monitor usage telemetry and customer feedback to fine-tune and enhance the protection over time.