Guides

Get your newsletter to the inbox — and keep it there

Mailbox providers and the law both decide whether your email lands in the inbox or the spam folder. These guides break down the rules that matter most for senders in plain English: the Gmail & Yahoo bulk-sender requirements, Gmail's DMARC mandate, RFC 8058 one-click unsubscribe, the CAN-SPAM Act, and the spam trigger words content filters score. Read up, then run your own message through the free checker.

Gmail & Yahoo sender requirements

The bulk-sender rules that took effect in February 2024 — SPF, DKIM, DMARC, one-click unsubscribe, and the 0.3% spam-complaint ceiling.

8 min read

Gmail DMARC requirements (2026)

What Google's bulk-sender rules demand of your DMARC setup — the exact DNS record to publish, p=none vs quarantine vs reject, alignment, and a sane rollout path.

9 min read

RFC 8058 one-click unsubscribe

How the List-Unsubscribe and List-Unsubscribe-Post headers work, and how to add a compliant one-click flow that mailbox providers trust.

7 min read

CAN-SPAM compliance checklist

The seven FTC requirements every commercial email must follow, as a working checklist — plus the best practices that keep compliant mail out of the spam folder.

9 min read

Email spam trigger words

The phrases and formatting signals content filters actually score — categorized and honest about how much words matter next to authentication and reputation.

9 min read

Add a List-Unsubscribe header, ESP by ESP

What Mailchimp, Klaviyo, Kit, MailerLite, Brevo, SendGrid, Postmark, and Amazon SES each add automatically — and the exact setting to flip when they don't.

10 min read

Gmail sender requirements (2026)

Google's complete sender rulebook in one place — the baseline every sender must meet, the stricter bulk-sender tier at 5,000 emails a day, and the enforcement timeline.

9 min read

How unsubscribes work in Mailchimp

The automatic Gmail/Yahoo one-click headers, the two-click footer link, the footer you can't delete, suppression lists, and how to exclude contacts from a send.

8 min read

Free tools

Prefer to check one thing at a time? These focused validators test a single part of your setup.

See where your email stands

Paste your newsletter or upload the raw .eml and get a plain-English verdict on authentication, one-click unsubscribe, and CAN-SPAM — in seconds, no signup.

Run a free check