My emails are blocked when sending to Gmail

[#1]

@morcott99 Please answer the question that @MisterW asked in message#10. It is important to know the format  of the sending address.

[#2]

The sending address is greg@mor-cott.co.uk

It's an old freenetname domain that has gone through madasafish to Plusnet as the host.

[#3]

Thank you, @morcott99 .

@MisterW  - all yours. 😉

[#4]

It's an old freenetname domain that has gone through madasafish to Plusnet as the host

@morcott99 ok, so the problem is that your domain does not have SPF or DKIM. Google have decided that email to gmail addresses MUST be authenticated with eether SPF or DKIM ( neither of which are actually mandatory standards!!)

So if your domain is hosted on a Plusnet account, then there is a workaround to create an SPF record which will define the Plusnet mail servers ( relay.plus.net ) as authorised to send mail for your domain and so you should then be able to send to gmail addresses.

See below for an explanation and details of the workaround.

Note that it will take up to around 6 hours for any SPF record to be created.

Shout up if you have any queries

Mitigating email delivery failures (notably Gmail)

Many users are reporting challenging issues in sending emails to some of the big email players. Some of those providers (notably Gmail, but only in respect of their free email accounts) have mandated the SPF & DKIM non-mandatory RFCs on other email providers, such as Plusnet. This can bring about significant difficulty when attempting to send emails using the various Plusnet and vISP legacy email services.

How you mitigate Google's behaviour very much depends on how you send your emails via Plusnet's SMTP servers and which Plusnet vISP email brands you use.

• A Plusnet email account or a legacy brand (for example MAAF) email account
• you@youraccount.plus.com (native Plusnet email address)
• you@yourdomain.co.uk which is registered and hosted by Plusnet (or MAAF)
• you@yourdomain.co.uk which is registered elsewhere and hosted by Plusnet
• you@yourdomain.co.uk which is hosted elsewhere which forwards  mail to your Plusnet (or MAAF) mailbox

The vISP email brands have different level of mitigation capability - for some, the only practical solution might be to migrate your email hosting elsewhere.

Native Plusnet email address

If a user sends email using a from address of you@youraccount.plus.com then DKIM signing will be applied to the email automatically (and pass Gmail's imposed restrictions) if the SMTP server is configured to require authentication. Somewhat unhelpfully, Plusnet's email setup guide suggests that such authentication is NOT required if connecting over a Plusnet connection. Whilst technically true, operational complications can occur and it is much tidier to just enable authentication with the "use the same account settings as the incoming server" option.

Your own domain

If you send from your own domain name, then DKIM signing is not available and you will need to configure SPF instead. How to do this depends on where your domain is hosted - by Plusnet or by third party.

Plusnet fully hosted and registered domain

For Plusnet brand registered and managed domains, SPF configuration is facilitated by the addition of a TXT record in the domain's DNS settings. Plusnet's DNS configuration tool for hosted domains does not permit the creation of TXT records. However, there is an unsupported "facilitation" which will create an SPF record for a hosted domain.

On the basis that your account ALREADY has a hosted domain:

• Log into the user portal
• Go to Manage Account
• Manage Your Domains (Manage your domains link)
• Configure domain name
• Create an "Additional DNS records (Advanced)" as follows...

For the avoidance of doubt leave the left side blank, exactly as shown.

If your email service is provided by one of the legacy vISP brands (for example MAAF) acquired over the years by Plusnet, similar options are not available to you.

Domain name registered and managed elsewhere (third party)

There are two scenarios here:

1. Plusnet hosts the email service for the domain
2. The domain forwards email to the native Plusnet email address

THESE ARE NOT THE SAME.  Ideally email forwarding should be avoided as it brings about numerous complications - you should use the DOMAIN's email servers to received and send your domain email, not Plusnet's.

To configure SPF on a domain name registered elsewhere, you must use your domain name provider's DNS configuration tools to set up the applicable SPF record:

v=spf1 a mx include:_spf-internal.plus.net include:_spf-internal2.plus.net ~all

or

v=spf1 include:_spf-internal.madasafish.com include:_spf-internal2.madasafish.com include:_spf-external.madasafish.com -all

[#5]

I have tried the Mange your domains link

Says there are no domains to manage

[#6]

Is your domain still hosted on an old freenetname or madasafish account? 

[#7]

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@MisterW wrote:

So if your domain is hosted on a Plusnet account, then there is a workaround to create an SPF record which will define the Plusnet mail servers ( relay.plus.net ) as authorised to send mail for your domain and so you should then be able to send to gmail addresses.

 I found that relay.plus.net doesn't do diddly squat for SPF. I had to use avasout-peh-002.plus.net instead in my SPF and that worked instantly.

IT would seem that relay.plus.net is simply PNs SMTP server that accepts mail. It then transfers it to another outbound SMTP client (avasout-peh-002.plus.net) which makes an outbound connection and sends on the users behalf.

[#8]

Read post #19 for the correct settings.

relay.plus.net is a service aggregator address - there are a multitude of real SMTP servers that actually do the sending and it is they which need to be in the SPF record.  What took you down the path of using relay.plus.net in the SPF record?

[#9]

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@Townman wrote:

What took you down the path of using relay.plus.net in the SPF record?

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A senior moment!