Subscription Service - Travel Advisories and Bulletins

About this service

Our travel advice provides up-to-date information about the risks you might face overseas, helping you to make well-informed decisions about whether, when and where to travel.

We update this advice regularly, so when travelling or living overseas we recommend you subscribe to receive free update notifications via email, for:

  • countries to which you are travelling; and/or
  • international issues and events,

so that you always have the latest information.

Why you might not be receiving all the e-mails we send you

Unsolicited, unwanted advertising e-mail, commonly known as "spam", has become a big problem. It's reached such proportions that most e-mail services and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have put some sort of blocking or filtering system in place or begun relying on self-proclaimed 'blacklists' to seperate spam from legitimate e-mail. Most modern e-mail applications have spam filtering built-in and turned on by default.

The format and language in Smartraveller Advisories and Bulletins e-mails sometimes causes it to be filtered out as spam, even though we never send unsolicited email. In many cases the intended recipient of the email is not notified that it didn't get through, and neither are we (the sender).

There is something you can do to keep our messages from falling into a 'false positive' spam trap. You can negate "blacklists" (or "junk-filters") with what is known variously as a "safe sender list", or "safe list", or "list of privileged senders". The generic term is a "whitelist".

To ensure that you receive Smartraveller Advisories and Bulletins we ask that you take a minute to add our domain to your e-mail clients equivalent of a "safe sender list".

Of course, every e-mail system is different. Below are instructions for some of the more popular ones. There are a number of different spam filter programs on the market, and e-mail services/software such as Gmail, AOL, Hotmail and Yahoo! have specific rules about adding addresses or internet domains to their whitelists. If yours isn't covered below, please contact your ISP or software vendors customer service for their instructions. (Forward the details to us, and we might add it!)

If you use spam filtering services/software, to guarantee that you can receive our e-mail you must "whitelist" our e-mail address (or our internet domain).  This means you need to set up your e-mail software or service to accept incoming e-mail from a specific e-mail address. In our case, the e-mail address is smartraveller-owner@smartraveller.gov.au

How to add Smartraveller Advisories and Bulletins to e-mail whitelists

To find instructions for your e-mail provider or software, use this handy menu:

Online Services:

Email Sofware Programs:

Spam Filtering Software:

 


ONLINE SERVICES:

Yahoo!:

  1. Open your Yahoo mailbox.
  2. Click Mail Options
  3. Click Filters.
  4. Next, click Add Filter.
  5. in Filter Name box type Smartraveller Advisories and Bulletins
  6. In the top row, labeled "From header," make sure contains is selected in the pull-down menu.
  7. Click in the text box next to that pull-down menu, then enter smartraveller-owner@smartraveller.gov.au
  8. At the bottom, where it says 'Move the message to:', select 'Inbox' from the pull-down menu.
  9. Click the Add Filter button again.

Gmail:

  1. Click Contacts along the left side of any Gmail page.
  2. Click Add Contact.
  3. In the primary e-mail address box, type smartraveller-owner@smartraveller.gov.au
  4. Click Save.

Hotmail:

  1. Click the Options link.
  2. Click the Mail link
  3. Click on Junk E-Mail Protection
  4. Click on Junk E-Mail Filter
  5. From the selection list, choose your Junk E-Mail Filter level (select either 'Low', or 'Enhanced') and click the OK button
  6. Click on Safe List
  7. In "Type a single e-mail address (or domain)," type smartraveller-owner@smartraveller.gov.au
  8. Click Add button.

MSN:

  1. Click Help & Settings
  2. Click Email Settings
  3. Click on Safe List
  4. In Add an item to this list, enter smartraveller-owner@smartraveller.gov.au
  5. Click Add

AOL (version 9.0 or higher):

  1. Click the Mail menu and select Address Book.
  2. In the pop up box, click the Add button.
  3. In the "Other E-Mail" field, type smartraveller-owner@smartraveller.gov.au
  4. Make our From address the "Primary E-Mail" address by checking the associated check box.
  5. Click the Save button.

AOL 8.0:

  1. Open the e-mail.
  2. Click Add Address.
  3. Verify the senders contact information.
  4. Click Save.

 


EMAIL SOFTWARE PROGRAMS:

Mozilla Thunderbird:

Initially, the automatic junk mail detection for incoming messages might not be very accurate (unti you have 'trained' it) and you should check your Junk folder to see our e-mail (from smartraveller-owner@smartraveller.gov.au) has not been mistakenly detected as junk.

To prevent this from happening in the future, you need to mark our e-mails as NOT junk. Do this by right-clicking on the received e-mail and choose "Mark -< As Not Junk".

Outlook (2003 or higher):

The Junk E-mail Filter in Outlook is turned on by default. You can either add our address to your address book or to the 'Safe Senders' list ( see http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HP052433571033.aspx for more details ).

  • Add to Contacts Method.
    1. Open the e-mail.
    2. Right-click the senders e-mail address.
    3. Click Add to contacts.
    4. Click Save and close.

  • Safe Senders List Method.
    1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
    2. On the Preferences tab, under E-mail, click Junk E-mail.
    3. On the Safe Senders tab, click Add.
    4. In the Enter an e-mail address or Internet domain name to be added to the list box, enter smartraveller-owner@smartraveller.gov.au ( or just our domain name smartraveller.gov.au), and then click OK.

Outlook Express (version 6 or higher):

  1. Open the e-mail.
  2. Left-click the sender icon, or right click the senders name.
  3. Click Add to contacts.
  4. Click Save and close.

Entourage:

  1. Open the e-mail.
  2. Right-click the senders e-mail address.
  3. Select Add to address book from the menu.
  4. Verify the senders contact details.
  5. Click Save.

MacMail:

  1. Open the e-mail.
  2. Ctrl-click the senders e-mail address and select Open in the address book.
  3. Verify the senders contact information.

SPAM-FILTERING SOFTWARE:

CleanMyMailbox:

If Smartraveller Advisories and Bulletins e-mail is filtered, click on the white "W" icon on the left column of the mailing; when the pop-up window comes up, simply click the Add to Whitelist button.

Alternative whitelisting methods:

  1. * Click on the White List button
  2. Add: smartraveller-owner@smartraveller.gov.au to the bottom of your existing list
  3. Click the Submit List button
  4. Click the Subject White List button
    Add: [Smartraveller Advisories and Bulletins] to the bottom of the list on a line by itself
  5. Click the Submit List button

Cloudmark SpamNet:

  1. Select "Cloudmark | Options"... from the Cloudmark SpamNet toolbar in Outlook.
  2. Click "Advanced"
  3. Go to the Whitelist tab
  4. Click the Add button
  5. Type: smartraveller-owner@smartraveller.gov.au
  6. Click OK
  7. Click OK
  8. Click Yes
  9. Click OK

Mailblocks:

  1. Click the "Addresses" tab
  2. Click "New"
  3. Type: smartraveller-owner@smartraveller.gov.au
    1. Make sure that "Accept Mail From This Address" is selected under Receiving Options.
    2. Uncheck "Display in People Picker" under Other options.
  4. Click Submit
  5. Click OK

MailShield:

  1. Click Friends from the toolbar
  2. Click Add, then type: smartraveller-owner@smartraveller.gov.au
  3. Click OK

MailWasher:

  1. Click Tools, then Blacklist & Friends
  2. Click Add... on the right, the Friends list side
  3. Make sure Plain e-mail address is selected
  4. Type: smartraveller-owner@smartraveller.gov.au
  5. Click OK
  6. Click OK

McAfee Spamkiller:

  1. Click Friends from the sidebar
  2. Click Add
  3. Type: smartraveller-owner@smartraveller.gov.au
  4. Click OK

Norton AntiSpam:

  1. Start up Norton AntiSpam
  2. Click the Status & Settings tab
  3. Click AntiSpam
  4. Click Configure
  5. Click Allowed List tab
  6. Click Add button
  7. In the 'Email Address' box, enter: smartraveller-owner@smartraveller.gov.au
  8. Click OK
  9. Click OK

oddpost:

  1. Check your 'Probably Spam' folder.
  2. If you see that mail from Smartraveller Advisories and Bulletins was incorrectly filtered out, select it, and click the "Move to Inbox" and "Mark as Not Spam" button.

SpamAssassin:

  1. Add the following entry to your user prefs file, which is found in the spamassassin subdirectory on your web/mail server: whitelist_from smartraveller-owner@smartraveller.gov.au
  2. Save the user_prefs file or move the updated copy to your .spamassassin subdirectory
  3. If you have no user_prefs file in this subdirectory, create one:
    http://spamassassin.taint.org/doc/Mail_SpamAssassin_Conf.html
    http://www.cleanmymailbox.com/sauptool/

SpamButcher:

  1. Click the Configure button
  2. Go to the "Known Senders" tab
  3. Click Add under "Known Good Senders and Recipients"
  4. Type:smartraveller-owner@smartraveller.gov.au
  5. Click OK
  6. Click OK again

Spameater Pro:

  1. Click Filters from the sidebar
  2. Click the Approved Senders tab
  3. Click Add Filter
  4. Type: smartraveller-owner@smartraveller.gov.au
  5. Choose 'Full Email Address' under Address Type
  6. Select Email Domain
  7. Click OK

Spam Inspector:

  1. Select Spam Inspector, then 'Manage Friends List' from either the Spam Inspector toolbar or from the Outlook menu.
  2. Make sure Email is selected under 'Add a New Friend'
  3. Type: smartraveller-owner@smartraveller.gov.au
  4. Click the >> button
  5. Click Close

Spam Interceptor:

  1. Follow the Trusted link under > Authentication Lists. Enter the e-mail address: smartraveller-owner@smartraveller.gov.au
  2. Click Add

SpamPal:

  1. Click on the SpamPal system tray icon with the right mouse button.
  2. Click 'Add to Whitelist' from the menu.
  3. Type: smartraveller-owner@smartraveller.gov.au
  4. Click Add

Spam Sleuth:

  1. Select File, then Configure.
  2. Go to the Friends category.
  3. Make sure Active is checked
  4. Type: smartraveller-owner@smartraveller.gov.au on a line by itself in the entry field
  5. Click OK