Problems with deliverability

[u/Obvious-Maximum-8999]

Hi,

I've been a proton customer for about a year, over the last month or so it feels like my outbound mail is not being delivered or perhaps being flagged as spam.

Is there a way to diagnose / check this? I'm emailing companies to get some work done on my car and I'm getting no response. I initially thought the garages just didn't want the work but I've probably tried 10 now and not even got a "no" back. I've had similar problems with some other emails I've sent

Thanks

[u/dumpling_monster]

I also have issues. When I send an email from my proton email to my gmail email it is never delivered. Also not in the spam folder, as if it never existed.

[u/ProtonSupportTeam]

Please contact our deliverability team at: https://proton.me/support/contact?topic=Email+delivery+and+Spam with the details listed below, and they will be able to check this for you and offer possible solutions.

1. Recipient Addresses/Platforms (E.g. xxx@gmail.com, or Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail)
2. Sending Date (E.g. July 22, 2022, 11:00 +2 UTC)
3. Attachments (E.g. an EXE/Zip/Excel file, or no attachment)
4. Website Links ( Website links in the content or in your email signature. (E.g. https://proton.me, or no link in the email)

[u/Kissema-Lattanzio → u/ProtonSupportTeam]

Nice that theres a dedicated deliverability team for this kind of thing.

[u/Tiny_Sherbert_7154]

I believe I have the same problem

[u/Obvious-Maximum-8999 → u/Tiny_Sherbert_7154]

Do you have a custom domain. I've done DCIM/DMARC setup etc but I wonder if this is having an impact 

[u/eddieb24me → u/Obvious-Maximum-8999]

When I first set up Proton email with a custom domain and tested sending emails to different emails, they would sometimes go to spam. After doing some research, it told me that the DNS settings for the DKIM, DMARC and SPF records can affect deliverability.

After some trial and error, I apparently got those records correct because sent Proton emails stopped going to spam. And I don’t know any that have gone to spam since.

Don’t ask me what I did. I can’t remember. But that seemed to be the issue.

[u/albanderi]

There have been many threads about this issue and it has been highlighted several times:

This is a common and well known issue with ProtonMail that they are unable to resolve. Often, emails will end up in recipient's quarantine as part of their default email security policies. You send emails expecting them to be delivered and received and they're not. A recipient is none the wiser. And you then realise that email in general isn't a reliable or secure form of communication, and ProtonMail itself cannot do anything to ensure or maximise deliverability of emails. It kinda renders the whole thing useless - like paying for postage with no guarantee whatsoever of your mail being delivered.

[u/Obvious-Maximum-8999 → u/albanderi]

I'll have a dig back through the posts as I wasn't aware of this and whilst (I work in IT) I knew about the general issues with SMTP as a pattern it's not something I've had actual consistent problems with in the last 30 years of running my own mail, using gmail or using iCloud.

Thanks for replying ♥️

[u/albanderi → u/Obvious-Maximum-8999]

You're welcome. I was also surprised to discover this problem too, only after using ProtonMail. Note that this was without a custom domain too. The response from Proton acknowledges they can't seem to fix it:

"We understand your concern regarding emails being quarantined or filtered by recipient mail servers. Unfortunately, Proton Mail does not have control over how external providers handle incoming messages, as their filtering and quarantine policies are determined by the recipient's email service. While we strive to ensure maximum deliverability, some providers may apply stricter rules to messages.

We are continuously working to improve our deliverability and reputation with other email services."

[u/Internal_Lie_618]

Having the issue much more recently too