How to tell an Outlook Email is Encrypted

Owned by Chris Weaver
Last updated: Jun 07, 2022
3 min read

From a UofL Entity to a UofL Entity

When an encrypted email is sent from a UofL entity (such as UofL staff, faculty member or student) to another UofL entity, there are multiple ways to tell if a received message is encrypted:

  • When previewing the message in the Outlook application, if an email is encrypted, a red circle with a red, horizontal line will be visible to the left of the message preview.

  • When reading the message, a notification will appear above the body of the message.


From a UofL Entity to a Non-UofL Entity

If the recipient of an encrypted email is a non-UofL entity (like a Gmail or Yahoo email account), when the encrypted email is opened, the following message will appear for the non-UofL entity:

The recipient will then click the Read the Message button. A new window will appear in their Internet browser. This window contains the following content:



The Sign in with button will change, depending on the non-UofL entity’s email domain (such as Sign in with Google vs. Sign in with Yahoo ID).


If the non-UofL entity chooses to sign in with their email domain username, when they click Sign in with…, a new window will appear. They will the be prompted to log in to their email domain using their username and password. Once they sign in, the content of the email message will appear.

If the non-UofL entity chooses to sign in with a one-time passcode, when the non-UofL entity selects Sign in with a one-time passcode, the following message will appear in a new window in their Internet browser:

The non-UofL entity will then log in to their email, wherein they will have a message with the subject line Your one-time passcode to view the message from the sender Microsoft Office 365 Message Encryption (MicrosoftOffice365@messaging.microsoft.com). The content of the email will be as follows:


Where [INSERT PASSCODE HERE] is, an 8-digit passcode will be present. The non-UofL entity will then enter the one-time passcode on the Encrypted Message tab of their browser, where Microsoft Office 365 is asking for the passcode. Once the passcode is entered, the non-UofL entity will click Continue. The encrypted message will then appear in their browser.