How do I stop emails going to junk?

Austin Beresford
Published: 20 July 2017Last updated: 3 February 2024
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Here are the best ways to stop emails from being put in the junk mail folder.

Add an SPF Record

SPF - Sender Policy Framework records help reduce the chance of your domain being spoofed in spam messages. It can also increase the deliverability of e-mail to external providers such as Gmail and Outlook. You can set these to be added automatically to new packages in the Account Preferences of your 20i account or you can add them individually by adding a TXT record to the domain with the data v=spf1 include:spf.stackmail.com a mx -all. This tels other providers that 20i is a confirmed sender of your domain's emails.

Please see here for further information: Can I add SPF records for my domain name?

 

Add a DKIM Record

DKIM, like SPF, is a standard that enables a specific aspect of the email sending process to be authenticated. The premise of DKIM is to check that an email is really from the domain or sender that it said it was sent from and if it has been altered in any way in transit.

You can add one by going to the hosting package for the domain and to the DomainKeys section. You then need to select the domain you wish to add on to and add a Selector. This can be any value or name you like. It’s simply a field to identify the DKIM record. Then select Add Signature. If your nameservers are with us we'll automatically add this as a TXT record for you. If your name servers are elsewhere you'll need to go to 'Options' for the newly created DKIM and copy the DNS Name and DNS Value to a TXT record with your current DNS provider.

Please see here for further information: How do I add a DKIM record?

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Add a DMARC Record

DMARC - Domain-based message authentication, reporting and conformance records facilitates authentication designed to give email domain owners the ability to protect their domain from unauthorised use, commonly known as email spoofing. 

You can generate and add a DMARC record to a hosting package via the DMARC Wizard. You will need to select a domain name to add this record for and the request policy type. The policy type can be quarantine or outright reject. Quarantine will place the email in the recipient's spam/ junk folder, whilst the reject policy will reject the email and it will not arrive within the mailbox.

Generating a DMARC record will automatically add it into your DNS zone.

Please see here for further information: How do I add a DMARC record?

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Edit the Junk Mail Filters

If incoming emails are the issue then you can allow-list the mail in the Junk Mail Filters section of any hosting package. In the Junk Mail Filters section, you can set the general filtering level to tell us how strict we should be with incoming spam filtering.

If you just want to allow a particular address this can be done by allow-listing it for a domain or the mailbox on the package. If you want to allow a single mail address then you would need to add 'thataddress@thedomain.com' and if you want to allow a whole domain then you should add '*@thedomain.com'. This will allow mail from the address/domain to bypass our spam filtering.

Please see here for further information: How do I allow-list all email from a specific domain/mailbox?

Reseller Help - How do I support my clients?

These steps should help you provide helpful and effective support to your clients.

1) If your customer is suggesting their sending emails are going to the junk folder, we'd recommend confirming which mailbox they're sending from, and to. Whilst it's difficult to check 'why' an external server may have filtered the email, adding both an SPF and DKIM record should prevent this from happening.

 

2) If an incoming email has been placed in the junk folder, request the client provides the email headers, this will show a spam score and help determine the root cause for the email to have been filtered.