Postmaster Tools dashboards

Postmaster Tools dashboards let you view various data about outgoing emails that you send to personal Gmail accounts, including data about spam rate, reputation, message authentication and delivery errors. This information helps you to meet the sender requirements described in our email sender guidelines.

All your domains are listed on the Postmaster Tools homepage, along with the date on which each domain was added and each domain's verification status. For details about verification status, click the tooltip in the Status column. From the homepage, you can access dashboards with data about outgoing emails from each domain.

To set up Postmaster Tools for the first time, visit monitor outgoing emails with Postmaster Tools.

Dashboard data

About the data in Postmaster Tools dashboards:

• Postmaster Tools attempts to exclude all forwarded messages from dashboard data; however, it's possible that some dashboards include data from forwarded messages.
• Dashboard data isn't real-time data. When you make changes to your outgoing emails, the changes aren't immediately reflected in dashboard data. Typically, the data is updated within 24 hours, but it can take longer.
• Some dashboards show data only for messages authenticated with DKIM.
• To protect the privacy of Gmail users, dashboards might not include all data on days when your outgoing email volume is low. This can impact what you see in the dashboards.
• Postmaster Tools uses Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

Open dashboards

To open a specific dashboard, use the menus at the top of the Postmaster Tools window:

• Domain: Select any verified domain. Domains that aren't verified won't appear in the menu.
• Dashboard type: Select any of the Postmaster Tools dashboards.
• Time range: Select a time range for the dashboard data. You can select the past 7, 30, 60, 90 or 120 days.

Postmaster Tools dashboard overview

The table below has a short description of each dashboard. From this short description, you can go to detailed information about the dashboard.

Dashboard	Description
Compliance status	The Compliance Status Dashboard displays your compliance with the email sender requirements described in our email sender guidelines.
Spam rate	The Spam rate dashboard displays the percentage of your messages that recipients manually mark as spam in Gmail.
IP reputation	The IP reputation dashboard displays the quality rating for the IP addresses that you use to send email.
Domain reputation	The Domain reputation dashboard displays the quality rating for the domains that you use to send email.
Feedback loop	The Feedback loop dashboard displays email campaign messages that recipients have marked as spam.
Authentication	The Authentication dashboard shows the percentage of your emails that pass SPF, DKIM and DMARC authentication.
Encryption	The Encryption dashboard shows the percentage of your emails that are sent over an encrypted SSL or TLS connection.
Delivery errors	The Delivery errors dashboard displays the percentage of all authenticated messages (SPF or DKIM) that were rejected or that temporarily failed, compared to all authenticated messages.

Postmaster Tools dashboards

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Compliance status

The Compliance Status Dashboard is available to all email senders, including bulk senders, that send messages to personal Gmail accounts. A bulk sender is any sender that sends about 5,000 messages or more to Gmail accounts in a 24-hour period.

Use the Compliance Status Dashboard to verify that your outgoing emails comply with the sender requirements in our email sender guidelines.

Bear in mind:

• Dashboard data applies only to messages sent to personal Gmail accounts.
• Dashboard data used to determine compliance status isn't real-time data. When you make changes to meet sender requirements, your changes aren't reflected in the dashboard immediately. Typically, dashboard data is updated within 24 hours but can take longer.
• The Compliance Status Dashboard data applies to primary domains only, not to subdomains. The dashboard uses data from subdomains to determine compliance but provides status for primary domains only. For example, if you add the subdomain email.solarmora.com to Postmaster Tools, the Compliance Status Dashboard will show data for the entire solarmora.com domain.
• To protect the privacy of Gmail users, the dashboard might not include all data on days when outgoing email volume is low. This can impact what you see in the dashboard.

The Compliance Status Dashboard provides compliance information for the sender requirements in our email sender guidelines. Some requirements apply to bulk senders only.

Compliance status for all senders

• SPF and DKIM authentication
• DNS records
• Message formatting
• Encryption
• User-reported spam rate

Compliance status only for bulk senders

• DMARC authentication
• One-click unsubscribe
• Honour unsubscribe

There are two possible states for each requirement in the dashboard:

• Compliant: Your email system is correctly set up to meet the requirement and your messages meet the requirements in the email sender guidelines. No action is needed. To get details about the requirement, click the tooltip next to the requirement.
• Needs work: You must update your email system to meet the requirement and verify that outgoing messages meet the requirements in the email sender guidelines. The status column describes what actions to take to meet the requirement. After you've taken steps to resolve any issues and meet the requirement, it can take up to seven days for changes to be reflected in the dashboard.

Troubleshoot compliance status issues

This section describes common problems with compliance status and recommended steps to help resolve them. In this section:

Dashboard hasn't updated after I've made changes to be compliant

Possible cause:

The Compliance Status Dashboard uses a rolling data average that's gathered over multiple days, so your domain status might not be updated immediately.

Recommended action:

Check the Compliance Status Dashboard after seven days to see updated information.

Compliance dashboard data conflicts with other dashboard data

Possible causes:

• The Compliance Status Dashboard uses a rolling data average that's gathered over multiple days, so your domain status might not be updated immediately.
• The Compliance Status Dashboard uses slightly different datasets from other dashboards to calculate compliance. So data can vary slightly across dashboards.
• The Compliance Status Dashboard shows compliance for primary domains only. However, data from both primary and subdomains is used to determine compliance for the primary domain. For example, if you added the subdomain email.solarmora.com to Postmaster Tools, the Compliance Status Dashboard would show data for the entire solarmora.com primary domain.

Recommended actions:

• Wait seven days, then check the Compliance Status Dashboard again to see updated information.
• For data about subdomains, use Postmaster Tools dashboards other than the Compliance Status Dashboard.

Promotion messages have one-click unsubscribe but dashboard shows 'Needs work'

Possible cause:

If recipients mark many of your messages without one-click unsubscribe as spam, the One-click unsubscribe entry in the dashboard might show Needs work.

Recommended action:

Use the Feedback loop dashboard to identify which messages without one-click unsubscribe are being marked as spam by recipients. To see this data in the Feedback loop dashboard, set up Feedback loop.

In the dashboard, the 'Honour unsubscribe' entry shows 'Needs work'

Possible cause:

You might receive this entry if you don't honour the unsubscribe requests within 48 hours.

Recommended action:

Remove the recipient from your mailing list within 48 hours. If you have multiple mailing lists:

• Make sure that there are no processing errors in the server logs where unsubscribe requests are handled.
• Successful unsubscribe requests count towards your compliance rate whether or not your servers receive it.
  • This means that if services like Cloudflare block these requests and keep them from your servers, you're still responsible if the request isn't processed.
• To maintain compliance, make sure that your infrastructure is configured properly to receive and process all unsubscribe requests.
• Each list should have a unique list ID or 'From:' address.

Spam rate

The spam rate is the percentage of your messages that are delivered to the engaged recipient's inbox and then marked as spam by the recipient. Messages sent to spam and then marked as not spam by recipients count towards messages delivered directly to the inbox. Postmaster Tools displays the spam rate of DKIM-authenticated messages sent to Gmail accounts. 

If Gmail automatically sends a significant number of your messages to spam, the rate shown in the dashboard might seem low, because recipients get fewer of your messages in their Inbox.

Feedback Loop Dashboard 

A feedback loop is a mechanism that lets you know when messages in an email campaign are marked as spam by recipients. To get feedback loop information about your email campaigns, first set up the Feedback loop for Gmail. 

The Feedback Loop Dashboard displays the spam rate for messages from a specific email campaign that have a feedback loop ID. The ID identifies the email campaign associated with the message. 

• Average FBL spam rate: The average spam rate across all campaigns per day identified by feedback loop, over time. To display spam rates for a specific email campaign, click a data point on the graph.

• Identifier volume: The number of unique campaign identifiers per day that were identified by feedback loop, over time.

Troubleshoot spam rates

Although we recommend that you keep spam rates as low as possible, if your spam rate is extremely low, something might be impacting the accuracy of the data.

To protect the privacy of Gmail users, the dashboard might not include all data on days when outgoing email volume is low. This can impact what you see in the dashboard.

Issue	Possible causes	Recommended actions
I have high spam rates for my outgoing messages	Message recipients are reporting your messages as spam, after they're delivered to the inbox.	The longer you allow high spam rates, the more likely more of your future messages will be sent to spam. To reduce spam, follow these recommendations: Meet the guidelines and requirements in Email sender guidelines.  Avoid sending behaviours that contribute to a low reputation, and wait for the sending domain or IP address to recover from the low reputation.  Follow these best practices for sending emails: Only send emails to recipients who want to get messages from you. Make sure that recipients opt in to get messages from you. Confirm each recipient's email address before subscribing them. Periodically send messages to confirm that recipients want to stay subscribed. Consider unsubscribing recipients who don't open or read your messages. Make it easy to unsubscribe. Use the feedback ID to identify the types of message that are most often marked as spam by recipients. After taking steps to minimise spam, wait up to seven days for the spam rate to reach a normal level that's within compliance.
Compared to what I typically see in Postmaster Tools, my spam rate seems extremely low.	This dashboard shows the user-reported spam rate. Gmail is automatically sending a significant number of your messages to spam. The dashboard rate is low because recipients get fewer of your messages in their Inbox.
A high spam rate suddenly dropped to a rate of 0.	As a result of a historical high spam rate, many messages are automatically being sent to spam and recipients aren't reporting any inbox messages as spam.
The spam rate is missing after historically displaying a high spam rate.	As a result of a historical high spam rate, many messages are automatically being sent to spam and recipients aren't reporting any inbox messages as spam.
The spam rate is high but the domain or IP reputation is high.	Messages delivered to the inbox are being reported as spam by recipients. IP or domain reputation may be starting to drop
The spam rate is low but the domain or IP reputation is low.	This dashboard shows the user-reported spam rate. Gmail is automatically sending a significant number of your messages to spam, and few recipients are reporting them as not spam Your sending domain or IP address is recovering from a low reputation and potential spam messages in the inbox aren't reported as spam by recipients.
The spam rate doesn't match third-party sender spam reports.	Third-party senders don't use the same data as Gmail to determine spam. Gmail also determines spam based on other factors, including active users and suspicious email behaviours. So, third-party sender spam reports will typically differ from the data shown in this dashboard.	Use reports from both Google and third-party senders to help identify and resolve sending issues.
The number of feedback loop IDs is lower than the number that you actually send.	There are few or no spam reports for a particular feedback loop ID. To show in this dashboard, a minimum number of spam reports for the feedback loop ID is required. The feedback loop ID doesn't have enough messages to engaged users.	If you don't see a specific feedback ID, it's possible that the campaign is sending very little or no spam. However, if you have a high spam rate, consider using fewer unique feedback loop IDs.

IP reputation and Domain reputation

Note: The Domain reputation dashboard only displays messages sent from the exact domain used for DKIM and SPF authentication.

Reputation is a rating of the quality of domains and IP addresses used to send email, and is determined by the sending behaviour of a domain or IP address. Internet service and email providers monitor senders' reputations. Senders should maintain a high reputation to help ensure that messages are delivered as expected. Messages from senders with a high reputation are more likely to be delivered to Gmail's Inbox instead of to Spam. 

Postmaster Tools displays the reputation of domains and IP addresses that send DKIM-authenticated messages sent to Gmail accounts. If the sending IP address doesn't use DKIM, the reputation is displayed for domains and IP addresses that send SPF-authenticated messages to Gmail accounts.

To be reflected in the Domain Reputation Dashboard, the exact domain must be used during DKIM and SPF authentication.

Below are the reputation ratings displayed in the IP Reputation and Domain Reputation dashboard. Spam messages include messages automatically flagged as spam by Gmail and messages marked as spam by recipients.

Troubleshoot low reputation ratings

To protect the privacy of Gmail users, the dashboard might not include all data on days when outgoing email volume is low. This can impact what you see in the dashboard.

Reputation rating	Typical causes	Recommended actions
Bad	History of sending a high volume of spam regularly. Email from this address is almost always marked as spam or rejected by the receiving server.	To improve your reputation rating, avoid these email sending behaviours: sending spam, sending malware, sending from suspicious domains and sending messages that aren't authenticated by SPF or DKIM.  Follow the recommended actions in the Troubleshoot spam rates section in this article.
Low	History of sending a significant volume of spam regularly. Email from this address is likely to be marked as spam.
Medium	History of sending legitimate email, but occasionally sends spam. Most email from this address will have a fair deliverability rate, except with a notable increase in spam levels.
High	History of very low spam rates and complies with Gmail's sender guidelines. Email from this address is rarely marked as spam by Gmail.

 

Feedback loop

The Feedback Loop dashboard displays the spam rate for email campaign messages that have a feedback loop ID. A feedback loop is a mechanism that lets you know when messages in an email campaign are marked as spam by recipients. The feedback loop ID identifies the email campaign associated with a message. 

To get feedback loop information about your email campaigns, first set up the Feedback Loop for Gmail. 

This dashboard displays:

• Average FBL spam rate: The average spam rate across all campaigns per day identified by Feedback Loop, over time. To display spam rates for a specific email campaign, click a data point on the graph. Although we recommend you keep spam rates as low as possible, if your spam rate is extremely low, something might be impacting the accuracy of the data.

• Identifier volume: The number of unique campaign identifiers per day identified by Feedback Loop, over time.

To learn more about spam rates, visit the Spam rate dashboard.

To protect the privacy of Gmail users, the dashboard might not include all data on days when outgoing email volume is low. This can impact what you see in the dashboard.

Troubleshoot feedback loop spam rates

This section describes common problems and solutions for spam rates issues. In this section:

---

 My outgoing messages have high spam rates

Possible cause:

Message recipients are reporting your messages as spam, after they're delivered to the inbox.

Recommended actions:

The longer that you allow high spam rates, the more likely more of your future messages will be sent to spam. To reduce spam, follow these recommendations:

Meet the guidelines and requirements in the email sender guidelines.

Avoid sending behaviours that contribute to a low reputation and wait for the sending domain or IP address to recover from the low reputation.

Follow these best practices for sending emails:

• Only send emails to recipients who want to get messages from you.
• Make sure that recipients opt in to get messages from you.
• Confirm each recipient's email address before subscribing them.
• Periodically send messages to confirm that recipients want to stay subscribed.
• Consider unsubscribing recipients who don't open or read your messages.
• Make it easy to unsubscribe.
• Use the feedback ID to identify the types of message that are most often marked as spam by recipients.

After taking steps to minimise spam, wait up to seven days for the spam rate to reach a normal level that's within compliance.

Spam rate seems very low compared to the typical rate

Possible cause:

This dashboard shows the user-reported spam rate. Gmail is automatically sending a significant number of your messages to spam. The dashboard rate is low because recipients get fewer of your messages in their inbox.

Recommended actions:

The longer that you allow high spam rates, the more likely more of your future messages will be sent to spam. To reduce spam, follow these recommendations:

Meet the guidelines and requirements in the email sender guidelines.

Avoid sending behaviours that contribute to a low reputation and wait for the sending domain or IP address to recover from the low reputation.

Follow these best practices for sending emails:

• Only send emails to recipients who want to get messages from you.
• Make sure that recipients opt in to get messages from you.
• Confirm each recipient's email address before subscribing them.
• Periodically send messages to confirm that recipients want to stay subscribed.
• Consider unsubscribing recipients who don't open or read your messages.
• Make it easy to unsubscribe.
• Use the feedback ID to identify the types of message that are most often marked as spam by recipients.

After taking steps to minimise spam, wait up to seven days for the spam rate to reach a normal level that's within compliance.

A high spam rate suddenly changed to a rate of zero

Possible cause:

As a result of a historical high spam rate, many messages are automatically being sent to spam and recipients aren't reporting any inbox messages as spam.

Recommended actions:

The longer that you allow high spam rates, the more likely more of your future messages will be sent to spam. To reduce spam, follow these recommendations:

Meet the guidelines and requirements in the email sender guidelines.

Avoid sending behaviours that contribute to a low reputation and wait for the sending domain or IP address to recover from the low reputation.

Follow these best practices for sending emails:

• Only send emails to recipients who want to get messages from you.
• Make sure that recipients opt in to get messages from you.
• Confirm each recipient's email address before subscribing them.
• Periodically send messages to confirm that recipients want to stay subscribed.
• Consider unsubscribing recipients who don't open or read your messages.
• Make it easy to unsubscribe.
• Use the feedback ID to identify the types of message that are most often marked as spam by recipients.

After taking steps to minimise spam, wait up to seven days for the spam rate to reach a normal level that's within compliance.

Spam rate is missing after historically displaying a high spam rate

Possible cause:

As a result of a historical high spam rate, many messages are automatically being sent to spam and recipients aren't reporting any inbox messages as spam. This dashboard reflects user-reported spam, not messages automatically marked as spam by Gmail.

Recommended actions:

The longer that you allow high spam rates, the more likely more of your future messages will be sent to spam. To reduce spam, follow these recommendations:

Meet the guidelines and requirements in the email sender guidelines.

Avoid sending behaviours that contribute to a low reputation and wait for the sending domain or IP address to recover from the low reputation.

Follow these best practices for sending emails:

• Only send emails to recipients who want to get messages from you.
• Make sure that recipients opt in to get messages from you.
• Confirm each recipient's email address before subscribing them.
• Periodically send messages to confirm that recipients want to stay subscribed.
• Consider unsubscribing recipients who don't open or read your messages.
• Make it easy to unsubscribe.
• Use the feedback ID to identify the types of message that are most often marked as spam by recipients.

After taking steps to minimise spam, wait up to seven days for the spam rate to reach a normal level that's within compliance.

Spam rate is high but my reputation is good

Possible cause:

Messages delivered to the inbox are being reported as spam by recipients. IP or domain reputation may be starting to drop.

Recommended actions:

The longer that you allow high spam rates, the more likely more of your future messages will be sent to spam. To reduce spam, follow these recommendations:

Meet the guidelines and requirements in the email sender guidelines.

Avoid sending behaviours that contribute to a low reputation and wait for the sending domain or IP address to recover from the low reputation.

Follow these best practices for sending emails:

• Only send emails to recipients who want to get messages from you.
• Make sure that recipients opt in to get messages from you.
• Confirm each recipient's email address before subscribing them.
• Periodically send messages to confirm that recipients want to stay subscribed.
• Consider unsubscribing recipients who don't open or read your messages.
• Make it easy to unsubscribe.
• Use the feedback ID to identify the types of message that are most often marked as spam by recipients.

After taking steps to minimise spam, wait up to seven days for the spam rate to reach a normal level that's within compliance.

Spam rate is low but reputation is poor

Possible causes:

This dashboard shows the user-reported spam rate. Gmail is automatically sending a significant number of your messages to spam, and few recipients are reporting them as not spam

Your sending domain or IP address is recovering from a low reputation and potential spam messages in the inbox aren't reported as spam by recipients.

Recommended actions:

The longer that you allow high spam rates, the more likely more of your future messages will be sent to spam. To reduce spam, follow these recommendations:

Meet the guidelines and requirements in the email sender guidelines.

Avoid sending behaviours that contribute to a low reputation and wait for the sending domain or IP address to recover from the low reputation.

Follow these best practices for sending emails:

• Only send emails to recipients who want to get messages from you.
• Make sure that recipients opt in to get messages from you.
• Confirm each recipient's email address before subscribing them.
• Periodically send messages to confirm that recipients want to stay subscribed.
• Consider unsubscribing recipients who don't open or read your messages.
• Make it easy to unsubscribe.
• Use the feedback ID to identify the types of message that are most often marked as spam by recipients.

After taking steps to minimise spam, wait up to seven days for the spam rate to reach a normal level that's within compliance.

Spam rate doesn't match third-party spam reports

Possible cause:

Third-party senders don't use the same data as Gmail to determine spam. Gmail also determines spam based on other factors, including active users and suspicious email behaviours. So, third-party sender spam reports will typically differ from the data shown in this dashboard.

Recommended action:

Use reports from both Google and third-party senders to help identify and resolve sending issues.

Number of Feedback loop IDs seems low

Possible causes:

There are few or no spam reports for a particular Feedback loop ID. To show in this dashboard, a minimum number of spam reports for the feedback loop ID is required.

The Feedback loop ID doesn't have enough messages to engaged users.

Recommended action:

If you don't see a specific Feedback loop ID, it's possible that the campaign is sending very little or no spam. However, if you have a high spam rate, consider using fewer unique Feedback loop IDs.

Authentication

The Authentication dashboard displays the percentage of your email that passes SPF, DKIM and DMARC. This dashboard displays data for messages that have your sending domain in the From: header. Senders typically achieve 95% or higher success rates for DKIM and DMARC when these methods are set up correctly. SPF success rates tend to be lower and are often related to how many messages are sent by third parties.

On the Authentication dashboard, you can:

• View by From header domain: The dashboard shows data for messages where your sending domain appears in the From: header. This view focuses on whether your emails are authenticated in a way that aligns with your sending domain, which is important for DMARC compliance.
• View by DKIM and SPF domains: The dashboard shows data for messages where your sending domain matches the DKIM or SPF domain:
  • DKIM success rate: The percentage of messages where the DKIM domain matches your sending domain and passes DKIM authentication.
  • SPF success rate: The percentage of messages where the SPF domain matches your sending domain and passes SPF authentication.

Tip: When you select View by DKIM and SPF domains, the dashboard does not show the DMARC success rate.

Bear in mind that you can't control these behaviours, which can impact authentication success:

• How recipients forward your messages
• How mailing lists handle your messages
• What malicious users do with your messages

General best practices to increase authentication success rates are:

• Configure DKIM, SPF and DMARC.
• Use a reputable and stable DNS provider.
• Verify your DNS records.
• Require that all third-party sending services use DKIM for your domain. Create a unique DKIM key and configuration for each third-party service that you use to send email.

To protect the privacy of Gmail users, the dashboard might not include all data on days when outgoing email volume is low. This can impact what you see in the dashboard.

Troubleshoot authentication rates

This section describes common problems and recommended actions for low authentication rates:

---

Low DKIM authentication rate

Possible cause:

A malicious actor is trying to replay or spoof old messages, and they're getting the delivery errors. This is called a DKIM replay attack.

Recommended actions:

• Check that your DKIM TXT record is formatted correctly and contains the correct DKIM key.
• Check success rate later to check that DNS errors are resolved.

Possible cause:

Recipients are auto-forwarding your messages. If you're not getting errors, the forwarding server is probably getting them.

Recommended action:

• Contact the account service that's forwarding your messages.

Possible cause:

A malicious actor is trying to replay or spoof old messages, and they're getting the delivery errors. This is called a DKIM replay attack.

Recommended actions:

• Consider adding an expiry time to your DKIM setup to help reduce the risk of malicious actors.
• Set up SPF authentication for additional security.

Low SPF authentication rate

Possible cause:

A DNS error occurred when looking up your SPF configuration. This can be caused by an incorrectly formatted SPF DNS TXT record or by a temporary DNS error.

Recommended actions:

• Check that your SPF TXT record is formatted correctly and references all domains and IP addresses that end email for your domain. 
• Check success rate later to check if any DNS errors have been resolved.

Possible cause:

A third-party sender or forwarder isn't authenticating SPF with their own information (domain or IP address), and is authenticating with the original sender's information. Messages signed with DKIM and forwarded without changes (for example, by mailing lists or auto-forwarding) are often authenticated by SPF for the forwarding domain, and might not align with the From: header. Messages sent by a third-party sender should be SPF authenticated by the third-party sender. If not, messages might fail SPF alignment checks.

Recommended action:

• If you use a third-party service to send email, verify that they're using their own domain to send and that SPF is set up for that domain.

Possible cause:

A malicious actor might be attempting to impersonate (spoof) your domain. If they're sending from domains or IP addresses not in your domain's SPF record, messages will fail authentication.

Recommended action:

• Set up DMARC authentication with a policy of quarantine or reject; however, this might increase the risk of legitimate messages being quarantined or rejected.

Low DMARC authentication rate

Possible cause:

A DNS error occurred when looking up your DMARC configuration. This can be caused by an incorrectly formatted DMARC DNS TXT record or by a temporary DNS error.

Recommended actions:

• Check that your DMARC TXT record is formatted correctly.
• Check success rate later to check if any DNS errors have been resolved.

Possible cause:

A malicious actor is trying to replay or spoof old messages.

Recommended action:

• Set up DMARC authentication with a policy of quarantine or reject; however, this might increase the risk of legitimate messages being quarantined or rejected.

Possible cause:

If a message fails both SPF and DKIM authentication, it will also fail DMARC authentication. For example, if a third-party sender modifies messages without updating the message From: header, SPF and DKIM both fail, and so DMARC fails.

Recommended actions:

• Make sure that messages pass SPF and DKIM authentication.

• If you're in the process of turning on DKIM for your domain, we recommend using a DMARC policy with pct=0 and reviewing your daily DMARC reports to help identify the source of unauthenticated messages.

Possible cause:

Emails with some authentication but that are without From: header alignment are being sent to spam. If email volumes are high, your email might be rate-limited. DMARC passes or fails a message based on how closely the message From: header matches the sending domain specified by either SPF or DKIM. This is called alignment.

Recommended action:

• If your DMARC record is set up for strict alignment, consider changing to relaxed alignment, which typically provides sufficient spoofing protection. Strict alignment might result in messages from associated subdomains or other legitimate messages being rejected or sent to spam. Learn more about alignment.

Encryption

The Encryption dashboard displays the percentage of your authenticated messages that are encrypted.

TLS inbound: Percentage of incoming messages to Gmail that were sent over a secure TLS connection, compared with the total number of messages received from the domain.

TLS outbound: Percentage of outgoing messages to Gmail that were sent over a secure TLS connection, compared with the total number of messages sent from the domain.

Troubleshoot encryption issues

To protect the privacy of Gmail users, the dashboard might not include all data on days when outgoing email volume is low. This can impact what you see in the dashboard.

Issue	Possible causes	Recommended actions
I'm using TLS to send all my email but the dashboard shows a percentage lower than 100.	Recipients are auto-forwarding your messages and the forwarding server doesn't use TLS. A malicious actor is trying to replay or spoof old messages, and they're getting the delivery errors. This is called a DKIM replay attack.	Check your TLS logs to identify the source of the failures. Use DKIM authentication to increase deliverability chances.
I'm using TLS to send all my email but the dashboard shows 0 per cent.	You might have a TLS configuration that's using invalid, expired or revoked certificates. You might be using an older version of TLS that isn't as secure as later versions.	Make sure that your email system supports the latest TLS versions for outgoing messages. To learn more, visit Send email over a secure TLS connection.

Delivery errors

The Delivery errors dashboard displays the percentage of all authenticated messages (SPF or DKIM) that were rejected or that temporarily failed, compared to all authenticated messages. This dashboard also displays:

• Message rejection and temporary failure volumes
• Reason for message rejection or temporary failure

To protect the privacy of Gmail users, the dashboard might not include all data on days when outgoing email volume is low.

If failure rates are higher than what your sending logs show, some reasons might be:

• Recipients are auto-forwarding your messages and the forwarding server is getting the delivery errors.
• A malicious actor is trying to replay or spoof old messages, and they're getting the delivery errors. This is called a DKIM replay attack.

Postmaster Tools delivery errors

Error message	Description	Recommended actions
Rate limit exceeded	The domain or IP address is sending traffic at a suspiciously high rate, so Gmail temporarily limited the sending rate.	Stop sending email immediately when you see this error, then resume sending in a few minutes. This is referred to as warming up the sending domain or IP address. We recommend sending email at a constant rate, which is less likely to cause this error than sending email at a varying rate.
Suspected spam	Gmail determined the message might be spam.	Typically, this error is the result of a low domain or IP address reputation. If problems persist, contact us through the bulk sender escalation form.
Email content is possibly spammy	Due to the message content, Gmail determined the message might be spam.	Some types of message content, such as Internet links, increase the possibility of messages being treated as spam. If the problem persists, contact us through the bulk sender escalation form.
Bad or unsupported attachment	The message has unsupported attachments. To learn about supported attachments in Gmail, visit File types blocked in Gmail.	Send attachments that are explicitly supported by Gmail.
DMARC policy of the sender domain	The sending domain has a DMARC policy of reject. Messages that don't pass DMARC are rejected based on this policy. You can use a DMARC policy of none to meet our sender guideline requirements and still deliver messages that don't pass DMARC.	Check your daily DMARC reports to help identify whether the message is legitimate, or a spoofing or phishing attempt.
Sending IP has a low reputation	The reputation of the sending IP address is very low.  Learn how to improve your IP reputation.	Use other IP addresses to send email.  If the problem persists and you're following the recommendations and requirements in Email sender guidelines, contact us through the bulk sender escalation form.
Sending domain has a low reputation	The reputation of the sending domain is very low. Learn how to improve your domain reputation	If the problem persists and you're following the recommendations and requirements in Email sender guidelines, contact us through the bulk sender escalation form.
IP is in one or more public RBLs	The sending IP address is listed in one or more public Internet blocklists. To be removed from a blocklist, contact the organisations that blocklisted the sending IP address.	Contact the blocklist owner and ask to be removed.
Domain is in one or more public RBLs	The sending domain is listed in one or more public Internet blocklists. To be removed from a blocklist, contact the organisation that blocklisted the domain.	Contact the blocklist owner and ask to be removed.
Bad or missing PTR record	The IP address that sent the message doesn't have a PTR record.	If the PTR record is missing, add one. You can use the Google Admin Toolbox Dig tool to check for a PTR record.

Troubleshoot delivery errors

Too many failures reduces the limits for your sending domains and IP addresses, and large volumes of email will take longer to be delivered. The most effective way to increase your quota is to send email with as few failures as possible.

Some general recommendations for troubleshooting delivery errors are:

• Review error messages that you're getting to identify ways to reduce delivery errors.
• To get more information, check your own sending server logs. 

To protect the privacy of Gmail users, the dashboard might not include all data on days when outgoing email volume is low. This can impact what you see in the dashboard.

If the error message doesn't include a resolution or recommended action, it typically falls into one of these categories:

Error type	Description	Recommended actions
Temporary failures	Also called temp fails. Temp fails are a throttling tool intended to slow down sending rates. If you don't slow your sending rate after temp fails, your email will probably have some period of permanent failures. We recommend an exponential backoff: periodically retry a failed request, increasing the delays between each request. Learn more about exponential backoff.	Best practice: completely stop sending for a short period of time, then resume sending at a slower rate. Slow your sending rate.
Abuse-related permanent failures	There can be several causes for these errors, including message content, the sending IP address reputation, issues with your domain or failing to slow your sending rate after getting temp fails.	Follow the message formatting recommendations in Email sender guidelines. Best practice: completely stop sending for a short period of time, then resume sending at a slower rate. Slow your sending rate.
Generic permanent failures	These are typically an indication of something wrong with Google email servers.	Best practice: completely stop sending for a short period of time, then resume sending at a slower rate. Slow your sending rate.