TechMe

Your emails land in customers’ spam folders

Emails you send from your domain end up in spam or get rejected by Gmail and Outlook. What SPF, DKIM and DMARC are, and how to check them in plain words.

You might be seeing

  • Customers find your emails in spam
  • Order confirmations or contact form emails never arrive
  • Gmail rejects your email with error 550 5.7.26 (unauthenticated sender)

What it means

Big email providers like Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo check whether an email that claims to come from your domain was really sent with your permission. They look for three settings on your domain, called SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Since 2024 Gmail and Yahoo, and since 2025 Outlook.com, reject or spam-folder a lot of mail that fails these checks.

  • SPF lists which services are allowed to send email for your domain.
  • DKIM adds a signature to each email that proves it was not changed on the way.
  • DMARC tells receivers what to do when the first two checks fail.

What usually causes it

  • Your website or shop sends email (order confirmations, contact forms) through a service that is not listed in SPF and does not sign with DKIM.
  • DKIM was never switched on in Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. It is not always on by default.
  • You added a new tool (newsletter, CRM, booking system) that sends “from” your domain without being set up.
  • More than one SPF record exists, which makes SPF fail completely.

What you can check yourself

  1. Open one of your emails in Gmail, click the three dots, then Show original. Near the top you see SPF, DKIM and DMARC with PASS or FAIL. Take a screenshot.
  2. List everything that sends email for you: your mailbox, your website, your shop, newsletters, invoices, booking tools.
  3. Check your email provider’s admin panel for a DKIM or “email authentication” section and whether it says it is active.

When to ask for help

  • Any of the three shows FAIL or is missing.
  • Your website’s contact form or order emails are the ones going missing.
  • You use several tools that send email in your name.

Send me the “Show original” screenshot and your list of tools that send email. I can set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC so all of them pass, without breaking the mail that already works.

Updated