Sending and deliverability

This page explains what happens after someone on your team presses send. It covers the status Intray shows under each sent email, what Intray does when an email bounces or the recipient reports it as spam, and how the blocked recipients list works.

What makes your email arrive

Receiving mail servers check that an email was allowed to come from your domain. The DKIM, SPF, and return path records you add during email setup are how they check it. Intray does not let an address send until those records show Verified in Settings, and the recommended DMARC record tells receiving servers that you publish a policy. If a record stops verifying later, for example after a DNS change, fix it before you look at anything else on this page.

What you send also affects whether it arrives. Intray is for conversations with people who expect to hear from you. The email use policy says what may be sent.

The status under a sent email

Every email your team sends shows a status tag in the thread. The tag updates in place as Intray learns more, so you do not need to refresh the page.

A status only moves forward. An email that showed Delivered can later change to Bounced or Marked as spam, because some mail servers accept an email first and report the problem afterwards.

When an email bounces, fails, or is reported as spam, Intray also adds a "Delivery update" line to the thread timeline, so the next person who opens the thread sees what happened.

Bounces

A bounce means the recipient's mail server refused the email. A permanent bounce means the address cannot receive mail, usually because it does not exist. A temporary bounce means the address exists but could not take the email at that moment, for example because the mailbox is full.

After a permanent bounce, Intray adds the address to your blocked recipients with the reason "Hard bounce" and stops sending to it. Intray does the same when a bounce report does not say which kind of bounce it was. A temporary bounce does not block the address.

Sending repeatedly to addresses that do not exist makes receiving mail servers trust your domain less, which then affects email to everyone else. That is why a hard bounce block cannot be removed.

Spam complaints

A complaint means the recipient pressed the spam button in their mail app, and their mail provider told Intray about it. Intray adds the address to your blocked recipients with the reason "Spam complaint" and stops sending to it. A complaint block cannot be removed.

Intray also watches how many bounces and complaints a workspace gets compared with how much it sends. If the share gets too high, Intray pauses sending for the workspace, and anyone who tries to send sees "Sending is paused by recent bounce or complaint activity". Receiving and reading email keep working while sending is paused.

Opt-outs on email sent through the API

Every email your app sends through the Conversation API ends with a link that reads "Stop emails from this workspace". The email also carries the headers that let mail apps show their own unsubscribe button. Email a person writes from the inbox does not get this link.

When a recipient uses the link, Intray adds their address to your blocked recipients with the reason "Unsubscribed". The block covers every address and every API key in the workspace, and it also stops queued emails that have not gone out yet. An opt-out cannot be removed.

Blocked recipients

Open Settings and scroll to Blocked recipients. The list shows every address Intray will not send to, the reason, and the date it was added.

Anyone in the workspace can block an address. Type it into the field at the top of the list and press Block. Only a workspace owner can remove a manual block, with Unblock recipient.

Blocking applies to sending only. Email from a blocked address still arrives in your inbox.

What happens when you write to a blocked address

If every recipient in the To field of a reply is blocked, Intray does not send the reply and shows "All recipients are suppressed (bounced or complained previously)" followed by the addresses. If only some recipients are blocked, Intray sends the email to the others and tells you which addresses it left out. When you start a new email to a blocked address, Intray refuses it with "The primary recipient is suppressed" and the address.

Sending limits

Intray limits how many recipients a workspace can email per hour and per day, and how many people it can email for the first time in a day. Email from the inbox, email sent by automations, and email sent through the API all count toward the same limits. Replying to someone who wrote to you is not held to the per-recipient frequency limit, so a busy conversation is not slowed down.

While the API is in its pilot, a workspace owner can see the workspace limits and the remaining capacity under Settings, then Developers.

Sending from a connected mailbox

When you connect an existing mailbox and turn on sending, replies go out through your own mail server. Intray learns less about those emails than about email it sends itself.

Intray knows whether your mail server accepted the email for each recipient. Acceptance means your server took responsibility for passing the email on. It does not mean the recipient received it, so the tag stays at Sent and does not change to Delivered. Under the email, Intray adds a notice only when there is something to report.

The notice also tells you when no copy was saved to the mailbox's Sent folder, and when your mail server files its own Sent copy, which Intray does not check.

Bounce and complaint reports for these emails go to your mail server. A bounce notice from the recipient's server arrives in the mailbox as a normal email, and Intray does not add that address to blocked recipients for you. Block it by hand if you want Intray to stop sending to it.

When a customer says they never got your reply