{"id":1299,"date":"2019-10-17T17:53:38","date_gmt":"2019-10-17T17:53:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.hostinger.io\/support\/2019\/10\/17\/3423286-what-to-do-if-sending-emails-go-to-spam\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T12:12:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T12:12:15","slug":"3423286-what-to-do-if-sending-emails-go-to-spam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/support\/3423286-what-to-do-if-sending-emails-go-to-spam\/","title":{"rendered":"What to Do if Sending Emails Go to Spam"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"no-margin\">If the emails you send land in the recipient&rsquo;s spam folders, there are a few reasons why this may happen:<\/p><ul>\n<li>\n<p class=\"no-margin\">Specific <b>DNS records <\/b>are missing from your domain&rsquo;s DNS zone<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"no-margin\">Your <b>content <\/b>is detected as spam-like<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"no-margin\">You use an unsecured <b>method to send emails<\/b><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul><p class=\"no-margin\">You can prevent your emails from being marked as spam by following the below recommendations &#128071; <\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">\n<\/p><h2 id=\"h_7ba01bc202\">Mark Messages as &ldquo;Not spam&rdquo;<\/h2><p class=\"no-margin\">This solution will solve the issue at the receiver&rsquo;s end. You can ask the recipients themselves to mark the emails you&rsquo;ve sent as <b>Not spam<\/b>. Once they do that, emails from you won&rsquo;t end up in their spam inbox.<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">\n<\/p><h2 id=\"h_3709b690cb\">Add DNS Verification<\/h2><p class=\"no-margin\">Two specific DNS records are used to verify email: <\/p><ol>\n<li>\n<p class=\"no-margin\"><b>SPF<\/b> (stands for <b>Sender Policy Framework<\/b>) record allows domain owners to specify which email servers are authorized to send emails on their behalf<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"no-margin\"><b>DKIM<\/b> (stands for <b>DomainKeys Identified Mail<\/b>) record is used for signing and verifying the authenticity of emails: it involves adding a digital signature to outgoing emails that the recipient&rsquo;s email server can verify<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol><p class=\"no-margin\">Both these records are of <b><a href=\"\/support\/1583664-how-to-manage-txt-records\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"intercom-content-link\">TXT type<\/a><\/b> and should be added to your domain&rsquo;s DNS zone. <\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">\n<\/p><h2 id=\"h_a779a7955f\">Check Email Deliverability<\/h2><p class=\"no-margin\">Sometimes, instead of going to spam, the email is not even delivered to the recipient. <\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">\n<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">If you use <b>Hostinger Email<\/b>, you may check the delivery status of your outgoing messages this way: <b><a href=\"\/support\/6404796-how-to-check-delivery-logs-for-hostinger-email\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"intercom-content-link\">How to Check Delivery Logs for Hostinger Email<\/a><\/b> &#128161; <\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">\n<\/p><h2 id=\"h_7228dd500c\">Change the Sending Method<\/h2><p class=\"no-margin\">Another common cause is using an unreliable, non-secure method for sending emails, such as the <code>phpmail()<\/code> function.<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">\n<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">While <code>phpmail()<\/code> is enabled on our servers, we recommend you use it for <b>one-time sending<\/b> and<b> testing<\/b> <b>purposes <\/b>only.<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">\n<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">For <b>regular correspondence<\/b>, you need to switch to <b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/tutorials\/send-emails-using-php-mail#Using_PHPMailer_with_Hostinger_SMTP\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"intercom-content-link\">SMTP<\/a><\/b>. It&rsquo;s a much more reliable way to send emails, which will improve the delivery of your messages. An additional<b> bonus when switching to SMTP<\/b> is that emails sent via <code>phpmail()<\/code> show the sender as a generic address:<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">\n<\/p><div class=\"intercom-container intercom-align-center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/support\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/55\/2019\/10\/6a6f6352-8143-40fc-9575-568128213fe3.jpg\" alt=\"An example of a message sent via phpmail() after switching to SMTP \"><\/div><p class=\"no-margin\">\n<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">When sending emails via SMTP, the recipient will be able to see your domain name as the sender, which gives you more trust.<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">\n<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">If your site is WordPress-based, you can configure the SMTP settings by following this tutorial: <b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/tutorials\/wordpress-smtp\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"intercom-content-link\">How to Configure WordPress SMTP Settings to Send Emails<\/a><\/b> &#128161; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Preventing your sent email from going to the spam inbox of the recipient<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":581,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"include_on_kodee":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[185],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hostinger-email-troubleshooting"],"hreflangs":[{"locale":"en-US","link":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/support\/3423286-what-to-do-if-sending-emails-go-to-spam\/","default":1},{"locale":"es-ES","link":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/es\/support\/3423286-que-hacer-si-tus-emails-van-a-spam-correo-no-deseado-en-hostinger\/","default":0},{"locale":"fr-FR","link":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/fr\/support\/3423286-que-faire-si-vos-e-mails-sont-envoyes-dans-le-spam\/","default":0},{"locale":"id-ID","link":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/id\/support\/3423286-apa-yang-harus-saya-lakukan-jika-email-masuk-spam-di-hostinger\/","default":0},{"locale":"lt-LT","link":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/lt\/support\/3423286-ka-daryti-jei-el-laiskai-nukeliauja-i-nepageidaujamu-laisku-aplanka-hostinger-platformoje\/","default":0},{"locale":"pt-PT","link":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/br\/support\/3423286-o-que-fazer-se-seus-e-mails-cairem-no-spam\/","default":0},{"locale":"uk-UA","link":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/ua\/support\/3423286-------\/","default":0}],"include_on_kodee":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/581"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4936,"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1299\/revisions\/4936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}