Why Are My Emails Going to Spam? What to Check in Gmail

When emails you send from Gmail land in spam, the cause is usually the people on your list, not the words in your email. People who never asked for it report it, old addresses bounce, and a new account that suddenly sends a lot looks like a spammer. Fix the list and how fast you send first, then check your domain settings.

Is it really in spam, or in the Promotions tab?

Your email can end up in three places, and each one needs a different fix:

• The Spam folder. Gmail's filter decided the email looks unwanted. The person won't see it unless they open Spam.
• The Promotions tab. The email was delivered. Gmail sorts the inbox into tabs: Primary is for email from people you know, and Promotions is for deals, offers and other promotional email. When someone drags your email to Primary, Gmail learns from it.
• Nowhere: it bounced. The address doesn't exist, the mailbox is full, or the receiving server refused the email. If you send with YAMM and tracking is on, the row shows BOUNCED in the Merge status column, with the reason in a cell note.

To see where your email lands, send it to another Gmail address you can open, not the one you send from, and ask one or two of your recipients where they found it. If the test email isn't in the inbox, here's how to check your spam folder in Gmail.

Don't judge by open rates alone. Google says it doesn't track open rates, and that low open rates aren't necessarily an accurate sign of a spam problem.

Why are my emails going to spam?

Gmail tracks what people do with your emails and how your account sends. Here are the usual causes when you send from Gmail.

People on your list didn't ask for your email

Google's sender guidelines say it plainly: "If messages from your domain are frequently reported as spam, future messages from you are more likely to be marked as spam." A bought list gets you reported, and addresses copied from LinkedIn or a website aren't permission to email. The same guidelines say emails from an address in the recipient's contacts are less likely to be marked as spam, so people who already know you are your safest audience.

Some addresses no longer work

Lists get old. People change jobs, schools and email addresses. When many of your emails can't be delivered, Gmail may show the error "Messages you sent couldn't be delivered", and you may be able to send again after 24 hours.

Your account is new, or you suddenly send a lot more

Google watches new Gmail and Google Workspace accounts closely. Its guidelines also warn that "immediately doubling previously sent volumes suddenly could result in rate limiting or reputation drops."

People can't find a way to unsubscribe

When people can't unsubscribe easily, they click Report spam instead. And once someone has unsubscribed in Gmail, any email you send them afterwards goes straight to their Spam folder.

Your domain isn't set up (Google Workspace)

If you send from your own domain with Google Workspace, two DNS records (settings kept at your domain host) tell receiving servers the email really comes from you: SPF and DKIM. Your Workspace admin sets them up once: SPF at your domain host and DKIM in the Admin console, under Apps > Google Workspace > Gmail > Authenticate email. If you send from an alias on another domain, turn on DKIM for that domain too. With an @gmail.com address, there's no domain of yours to set up.

To check DKIM, send an email to another Gmail account you can open (a test sent to yourself won't show it). Open the email, click More > Show original, and look for DKIM=pass.

Something in the email looks misleading

Google's guidelines name a few things to avoid: a subject that starts with "Re:" or "Fwd:" when the email isn't a reply or a forward, the recipient's name in the sender name, hidden text, and links that don't show where they go. In a mail merge, personalize the greeting and the body, never the sender name.

What does Google ask of senders?

Google's sender rules have two levels. Most people sending from their own Gmail account only need the first one.

Google counts those 5,000 emails per domain, not per person. One Gmail account can't get there on its own: an @gmail.com account may hit a limit after 500 emails a day, and a Workspace account at 2,000. But a whole organization sending from one domain can, and once a domain counts as a bulk sender, it stays one. Our guide to Gmail's bulk sender guidelines covers that level in detail.

Google also wants every sender to keep the spam rate, the share of delivered emails that people report as spam, below 0.3%, and ideally below 0.1%. Google Postmaster Tools shows that rate, but only for a domain you verify, and it may show nothing when you send small amounts.

Do spam words, images or attachments matter?

Less than most checklists suggest. Google's sender guidelines don't list banned words and set no rule on how many images an email can have. Their rules on content are about not misleading people. Our help center does note that filters notice capital letters, exclamation marks and aggressive colors like red, and deliverability consultant Al Iverson ranks content third, "usually a distant third place", behind IP and domain sending reputation.

So don't hunt for banned words. Keep the email light instead: we suggest images under 500 KB, and a Google Drive link instead of attaching any file over 1 MB.

How do I send a mail merge from Gmail so it's less likely to land in spam?

This is the routine we suggest to YAMM users. Our help center covers the rules behind it:

1. Send only to people who expect your email. Customers, members, parents, colleagues, people who signed up. Not a list you bought or copied from public profiles.
2. Clean the sheet before you send. Delete addresses you know are wrong. With tracking on, YAMM checks your sheet for addresses that bounced in earlier merges and offers to skip them, and it asks the same about people who unsubscribed.
3. Start small on a new account. Send your first merge to fewer than 50 people and look at the bounces. Then grow step by step. If your list is long, spread it over several days.
4. Add an unsubscribe link. YAMM sends from your own Gmail account, so adding the link is up to you. Insert YAMM's unsubscribe link in your draft and keep tracking on, because the link only works with tracking on.
5. Send a test email first. Check the subject, the personalized parts and the links before the real send.
6. Write it like a one-to-one email. Your real name as the sender name, a subject that matches what's inside, details that fit each person beyond their first name, and a question people can reply to.

Each email goes out from your own Gmail account, one recipient at a time, so it looks like a normal email. That increases your chances of reaching the primary inbox. If you're new to mail merge, start with our guide to sending personalized mass emails in Gmail.

My emails already go to spam. How do I fix it?

If it started all of a sudden, look for what changed: a send much bigger than your usual ones, a batch of old addresses, or a run of spam reports. Then:

1. Pause your big sends while you work out the cause.
2. Remove the addresses that bounced and everyone who asked to stop.
3. Ask a few people who know you to find your email in Spam and click Not spam, or to add you to their contacts. Gmail then stops sending your emails to their Spam folder.
4. Restart small, with those people first, and grow slowly.

If Google suspended a Google Workspace account for sending too much, a Workspace admin can restore it, up to 5 times a year.