Doing the work

We send a newsletter and product email to thousands of people. What do Gmail, Yahoo and Microsoft now require from us?

Gmail and Yahoo since February 2024, and Microsoft's Outlook.com, Hotmail and Live since May 2025, hold bulk senders to the same short list, and marketing mail that misses it goes to spam or is refused. Authenticate the domain you send from with SPF and DKIM, and publish a DMARC record, at least p=none, aligned with one of them; Gmail and Microsoft apply this from 5,000 messages a day, and it is worth doing below that too. Put a one-click unsubscribe header (List-Unsubscribe with the RFC 8058 post method) on every marketing message as well as a visible link in the body, and act on it fast: Yahoo asks for two days. Keep spam complaints under 0.3 percent, with Google's target below 0.1 percent, which in practice means mailing only people who asked to hear from you and dropping those who never open. Send marketing from a subdomain kept apart from your transactional mail, so one bad campaign does not delay password resets and invoices. Check Google Postmaster Tools every month, because the complaint rate it shows is the one the mailbox providers act on.

Go deeper

3 resources, 3 link-checked.

📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Beginner

Gmail is the judge, so read the judge's own rules rather than a blog's summary of them. This is where the 0.3 percent spam rate ceiling, the authentication requirements and the one-click unsubscribe rule are written down by the people who enforce them.

Email sender guidelines

From Google Workspace Admin Help 20 min read

  • Every sender needs SPF or DKIM; anyone sending 5,000-plus messages a day to Gmail needs SPF, DKIM and DMARC together.
  • Keep the spam rate in Postmaster Tools under 0.30 percent, and Google's stated target is below 0.10 percent.
  • High-volume senders must support one-click unsubscribe plus a visible unsubscribe link in the body.
  • Sending domains and IPs need valid forward and reverse DNS (PTR) records, and mail must move over TLS.
Open support.google.com →
📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Intermediate

Yahoo's own rules for bulk senders, the counterpart to Google's sender guidelines and written by the people who enforce them.

Sender Best Practices

From Yahoo Sender Hub 8 min read

  • Bulk senders need SPF and DKIM, and a DMARC policy of at least p=none that passes, aligned with SPF or DKIM.
  • Marketing and subscribed mail needs a working one-click List-Unsubscribe header, and unsubscribes must be honoured within two days.
  • Keep the spam complaint rate below 0.3 percent, measured against mail delivered to the inbox.
Open senders.yahooinc.com →
📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Intermediate

Microsoft's own announcement of the sender rules for Outlook.com, Hotmail and Live addresses, which made Microsoft the third of the big mailbox providers, after Gmail and Yahoo, to require authentication from bulk senders.

Strengthening email security: Outlook's new requirements for high-volume senders

From Microsoft Tech Community (Outlook blog) by Puneeth 6 min read

  • Applies to domains sending more than 5,000 emails a day to Outlook.com, Hotmail and Live addresses.
  • SPF and DKIM must pass, and DMARC needs at least a p=none policy aligned with SPF or DKIM, preferably both.
  • Enforcement began on 5 May 2025, with non-compliant mail first routed to Junk and rejection to follow, and the Safe Senders list does not bypass it.
  • Also recommends a visible unsubscribe link, regular removal of invalid addresses, and mailing only people who consented.
Open techcommunity.microsoft.com →

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