Troubleshooting Email Delivery and Spam Issues

Where to Start Troubleshooting

Email delivery problems generally fall into two categories: your own outgoing mail not reaching recipients, or incoming mail not arriving as expected. Identifying which situation you are dealing with is the first step toward finding the actual cause.

Your Outgoing Email Is Landing in Spam Folders

If recipients report your emails are landing in their spam folder rather than their inbox, missing or misconfigured email authentication is one of the most common causes. If you have not yet read [INTERNAL LINK: "Understanding SPF, DKIM and DMARC (Email Authentication)", link to this article using its slug spf-dkim-dmarc-email-authentication], review it and confirm these records are correctly configured and passing verification for your domain.

Beyond authentication, content that resembles common spam patterns, such as excessive links, certain trigger words, or unusual formatting, can also contribute to spam filtering, even from a properly authenticated domain.

Your Outgoing Email Is Bouncing Entirely

A bounced message means it was rejected outright rather than filtered as spam. Review the specific bounce message returned, since it typically indicates the exact reason, such as the recipient's mailbox being full, the recipient address not existing, or your own sending server being blocked by the recipient's mail system for an unrelated reason, such as being flagged on a spam blocklist.

Incoming Email Is Not Arriving

If you are not receiving expected incoming email, first confirm your MX records are configured correctly, since an incorrect MX record can misdirect incoming mail entirely. See [INTERNAL LINK: "DNS Management: A/CNAME/MX/TXT Records Explained", link to this article using its slug dns-management-records-explained] to review what these records should look like.

Also check whether your own mailbox has reached its storage limit, since a full mailbox rejects new incoming mail. See [INTERNAL LINK: "Email Storage and Mailbox Size Management", link to this article using its slug email-storage-mailbox-management] if storage limits might be the underlying cause.

Checking If Your Domain Has Been Blocklisted

If a significant volume of your outgoing email is being rejected or filtered as spam across many different recipients, it is worth checking whether your sending domain or server IP has been placed on a public spam blocklist, which several free online tools can check directly. If you are listed, most blocklists provide a process for requesting removal once the underlying cause has been addressed.

Reviewing Recent Changes

If delivery issues began suddenly rather than gradually, consider what changed around that time, such as a recent DNS update, a new email sending service added without proper authentication, or a significant change in your typical sending volume or pattern, any of which can trigger delivery issues that were not previously present.

When to Contact Support

If you have reviewed authentication records, DNS settings, and mailbox storage without identifying the cause, our support team can review server level logs on our end that may reveal information not visible from your own mailbox or control panel.