Email & SMTP · 1 min read
Recipient Policy Blocks
What's happening
The recipient's mail server rejected your email because of its own policies. This is common with company, school and government mail servers. Typical messages:
- "The recipient's mail server has blocked the message due to administrative or policy restrictions"
- "Relay denied" or "Sender not allowed"
- "Rejected due to recipient policy"
Common causes
- The organization only accepts mail from approved senders
- Strict security filters reject unauthenticated or bulk mail
- Your domain or links failed a reputation check
- The address is internal-only or restricted to certain domains
Fix it
- Authenticate your domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC.
- Ask the recipient to allowlist you. Give their IT team your From address and sending domain.
- Check your content. Remove link shorteners and large attachments, which strict filters often block.
- Confirm the address. If it's a role or internal address, ask the contact for a different one.
If it keeps happening
If the same domain keeps rejecting you after you've fixed authentication and asked for allowlisting, stop sending bulk email to that domain and contact those people one-to-one.