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Gmail bulk sender requirements

What Google requires from everyone who sends to Gmail — and the stricter rules for bulk senders — with a live check of your domain.

Timeline

DateWhat happened
February 2024Requirements take effect; non-compliant mail starts seeing temporary errors.
June 1, 2024Deadline for one-click unsubscribe for senders with an existing unsubscribe link. Bulk senders with a spam rate above 0.3% become ineligible for mitigation.
November 2025Google “ramping up its enforcement on non-compliant traffic”: messages that fail the requirements see temporary and permanent rejections.

Requirements for all senders

  • SPF or DKIM for your sending domain.
  • Valid forward and reverse DNS (PTR) for sending IPs — handled by your provider if you use one.
  • TLS for transmitting mail.
  • Spam rate in Postmaster Tools below 0.3% (aim for under 0.1%).
  • Message formatting per RFC 5322; don't impersonate Gmail From addresses.

Additional requirements for bulk senders

Google's stricter rules apply if you send more than 5,000 messages per day to Gmail accounts. Messages from every subdomain of your primary domain count together, and once you've hit it, you're permanently treated as a bulk sender.

  • SPF and DKIM both set up.
  • DMARC published for your sending domain. p=none is allowed.
  • Alignment: the From domain must align with the SPF domain or the DKIM domain.
  • One-click unsubscribe for marketing and subscribed messages (RFC 8058: List-Unsubscribe with an HTTPS URL plus List-Unsubscribe-Post: List-Unsubscribe=One-Click), and a visible unsubscribe link in the body. Process requests within 48 hours.

What a DNS check can and can't tell you

SPF, DKIM keys and DMARC are public DNS records, so the check above verifies them directly. Alignment, unsubscribe headers and spam rate depend on your actual messages and your audience. We mark those as “check yourself” instead of guessing:

  • Alignment: open a message you sent in Gmail → Show original. The summary should say DMARC: PASS.
  • One-click unsubscribe: in the same view, look for both List-Unsubscribe and List-Unsubscribe-Post headers.
  • Spam rate: Google Postmaster Tools after verifying your domain.

Questions

Do the Gmail rules apply to Google Workspace recipients?

Google's 5,000-a-day threshold counts messages sent to Gmail accounts. Meeting the same rules for all your mail is still best practice: Workspace organisations run their own spam filtering and admins can apply stricter policies.

Is p=none enough for Gmail?

Yes, DMARC with p=none meets the requirement, provided SPF or DKIM aligns with your From domain. It doesn't protect your domain from spoofing, so plan to move to quarantine.

I send far fewer than 5,000 messages a day. What do I need?

SPF or DKIM, valid reverse DNS, TLS and a spam rate below 0.3%. Setting up all three of SPF, DKIM and DMARC is still worth it: it's quick, and it stops others spoofing your domain.

What happens if I don't comply?

Since November 2025 Google has been increasing enforcement: non-compliant messages can receive temporary or permanent rejections, not just land in spam.

Do transactional emails need one-click unsubscribe?

No. The unsubscribe requirement applies to marketing and subscribed messages. Password resets, receipts and similar transactional mail are exempt.

Sources

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