My Emails Aren’t Being Received

Emails Not Being Received? Here's How to Troubleshoot

If you or your recipients are experiencing issues with emails sent not being received, this guide outlines the most common causes and solutions. Follow these steps to diagnose and resolve delivery problems, ensuring your communications reach their intended audience.

1. Check Junk or Spam Folders (Recipient & Admin Action)

The most common reason for missing emails is that they've been diverted to a junk or spam folder.

• Recipient Action:
  • Ask the recipient to check their junk or spam folder for the missing email.
  • If found, they should mark the email as "Not Spam" and add the sender's address to their safe sender list or address book.
• Admin Verification:
  • As an Admin, you can verify if the email was sent from within Breeze:
    1. Navigate to the recipient’s profile.
    2. Open the Activity tab to confirm if the email was sent.
  • If no email appears in the Activity tab, it indicates one of the following:
    • The recipient may have unsubscribed.
    • They were not included when the email was composed.
    • They were removed from the list after the composer loaded.
    • The email was not correctly sent.

2. Understand Email Blocking by Recipient Servers

Even if SendGrid (Breeze's email delivery service) marks emails as "delivered," recipient mail servers can still filter or block them due to various factors:

• Recipient’s Mail Server Filters:
  • Providers like Gmail may categorize system-generated emails into folders such as Promotions or Updates.
• Authentication and Reputation:
  • Breeze emails are sent via SendGrid’s servers. While your domains may be verified, email servers sometimes treat messages differently if they originate from a third-party IP address.
• Recipient-Side Rules and Filters:
  • Recipients may have custom rules that block or filter emails based on past interactions (e.g., previously marking Breeze emails as spam).

Troubleshooting Tips:

• Ask recipients to mark emails as "Not Spam."
• Have recipients add your Breeze sender address to their contacts or safe sender list.

3. Free Email Provider Policies (e.g., Yahoo, AOL)

Some free email providers, such as Yahoo and AOL, have stringent policies that may block emails sent from their domains unless they originate directly from their own systems.

• Important Note: Emails sent through Breeze from an @yahoo.com or @aol.com address may be blocked or not delivered.
• For more information on this issue, refer to this Mandrill blog post.

4. Personal (Unverified) Email Addresses

When users (e.g., group leaders) send emails through Breeze using personal email addresses (e.g., @gmail.com), it can lead to delivery problems.

• Why this happens: Personal email addresses are not verified within Breeze’s system, meaning the emails cannot be fully authenticated. Many email providers (e.g., Gmail, Outlook) have recently tightened security requirements, making them more likely to block or send unauthenticated emails to spam folders.
• Solution:
  • Encourage users to send emails from a verified email address set up in Breeze’s Communications Settings. Verified emails authenticate messages properly and significantly improve delivery rates.

5. Whitelist Breeze Emails (Crucial for Recipients)

Whitelisting is a simple yet crucial step in email security best practices. It means telling your mail service to always allow certain emails to arrive in your inbox, ensuring they never get marked as spam. If Breeze emails are mistakenly blacklisted or sent to a junk folder, whitelisting will help ensure important messages are delivered.

Understanding how to whitelist an email will benefit all recipients, regardless of their email provider (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc.), to ensure all important Breeze communications reach their inbox.

How to Whitelist an Email in Gmail

If you use Gmail as your email provider, it’s easy to stop certain messages from going to spam. You just need to set Gmail spam filters to never mark all future communications from that sender as unwanted mail. Whitelisting emails in Gmail can be done quickly through the web client:

1. Log in to your Gmail account.
2. Click the Settings gear icon in the top-right corner, then select See all settings.
3. Navigate to the tab labeled Filters and Blocked Addresses to access information about your existing filters, and select Create a new filter.
   • Note: To whitelist a single sender, type the entire email address. To whitelist every sender from a certain domain, type only the domain (e.g., @mail.breezechms.com). This will set Gmail spam settings to approve every message from that domain.
4. Enter the emails or domains you want to add to the Gmail whitelist into the From section.
5. Click Create filter to confirm.
6. Put a mark next to Never send it to Spam to add this address to the Gmail safe sender list.
7. Click Create filter again to save settings.

Using Gmail's filter settings, you can also star these emails, apply a chosen label, mark them as important, or perform other actions.

Whitelisting in Other Email Providers

(If you need general advice or specific instructions for other common email providers, please see more here.) 

6. Authenticate Your Domain (Optional but Highly Recommended)

For organizations sending a high volume of emails, fully authenticating your domain is strongly recommended. This improves deliverability and protects your sender reputation.

• Steps:
  • Your IT administrator can add CNAME records to your domain to authorize Breeze to send emails on your behalf.
  • Share this guide with your IT team for assistance.

7. Contact Support if Issues Persist

If you've followed the steps above and are still experiencing email delivery issues, please contact Breeze Support with the following details:

• Who sent the email.
• The date and time the email was sent.
• Names and email addresses of recipients who did not receive the email.

Our team will be happy to investigate further!