"Email going to spam or not arriving: what to check"

When mail goes missing, the cause is usually one of a handful of things. These questions narrow it down before you call anyone.

Is it one person, or everyone?

If one person isn't getting your mail, the problem is often on their side: a full mailbox, a filter, or their company's spam settings. Ask them to check their spam folder and to add your address to their contacts. If many people at different companies are missing it, the problem is more likely on yours.

Is it one kind of email?

Newsletters, invoices and password resets often come from different services. Mailchimp might send your newsletter while your accounting tool sends invoices. If only one kind goes missing, the service that sends it is the place to look.

Did anything change recently?

A new email service, a website move, or a change to your domain's DNS can break the records that prove your mail is really from you. If the trouble started on a particular day, think about what changed around then.

What the report says

Open the domain in healthcheck.email. If a service that sends your mail is marked as not set up, mail from it is likely to land in spam or be refused. The report's next step says what to change, and where.

What to send your email provider

If you need help from your email provider or the service that sends the mail, send them the message's headers: the technical record of where it went. In Gmail, open the message, choose More (⋮), then Show original. In Outlook, open the message, choose More actions (…), then View, then View message details. Copy everything shown.

To read them yourself first, paste them into Check a message's headers, from your workspace's home. It shows where the message waited, what the receiving server checked, and how Microsoft scored it. How to find a message's headers covers every common mail app.

In healthcheck.email

Start from your workspace's home. "Email going to spam, or not arriving?" opens Get help: answer a few questions and we check what we can, say what's likely, and keep a case your team can pick up. Ask a question lets you ask about a domain's report in your own words.