Using an smtp alongside a gmail address setup I’m finding that emails are going to spam . Is there a guide to prevent this from happening ? I can see historically this has happened to a lot of people with no real solution . A guide would help here 

Are you using Google’s SMTP service? This would be the only way to prevent this as you would need to authorize the SMTP server via DNS to send email via a domain and as you don’t own the gmail.com domain would not be able to authorize it unless you use Google’s SMTP service. 

If you’re following Gmail’s directions for their SMTP server and a Gmail email address that is all you need, as Gmail would authorize it. I have moved this to our server so you can obtain further assistance though from the community. 

https://support.google.com/a/answer/10685031

If you've configured your IPB to send email via SMTP instead of the default PHP (meaning from your server), it looks like the SPF record is:

v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all

If your server itself is sending mail (via PHP), you would need to do something like:

v=spf1 ip4:XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX include:_spf.google.com ~all

Where XXX is your server's IP address.  

If you post the domain name, we can look up the SPF record to see if it's still incorrect.  A good tool to check out might be:

https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx

It will let you check your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC settings to see if it's reporting errors.  

What is the domain name?  If you’re not comfortable posting it, PM me. I’ll look up the settings. 

Received your PM.  The SPF and DKIM are both good.

I signed up for your forum using a custom domain using iCloud.com and it reported no problems.  It immediately went into the inbox as expected.  I then changed my email address to an Outlook domain which was fine also.  I finally changed my email address to Gmail.  That message went into the spam folder.

In Gmail, if you choose "Show Original", it will give you the raw headers and the status of the SPF/DKIM.  For the email change notification, it reported:

Original Message

Message ID	<614f7db4.1c69fb81.1a599.5cae@mx.google.com>
Created at:	Sat, Sep 25, 2021 at 3:51 PM (Delivered after 2 seconds)
From:	Our Beloved Ducks Forum <forum@YOURDOMAIN.COM>
To:	MYEMAIL@gmail.com
Subject:	Please confirm your email address change
SPF:	PASS with IP 209.85.220.65 Learn more
DKIM:	'PASS' with domain YOURDOMAIN.COM Learn more

So it's not a SPF/DKIM issue.  You're good on that front.

Gmail simply reports:

Why is this message in spam? It is similar to messages that were identified as spam in the past.

So it's not a technical limitation on your setup/config.  My guess is the domain itself has received spam complaints in the past.  You might want to use Google's Postmaster Tools site... 

https://postmaster.google.com

Since you're using Google Workspace, you can actually reach out to Google for assistance.

https://support.google.com/a/table/3247295?hl=en-AU

They should be able to help note why their systems are flagging stuff as spam.  

Edited September 25, 20213 yr by Randy Calvert

 

Thanks Randy ,thats really helpful.Can you remove the domain from the above though .I'll give those things a shot.

Sorry...  thought I had caught all of the references.  Fixed.

To be honest, it might be better to switch mail providers. Heck… even possibly use your own server’s built in mail capability. Will most likely be easier. 

Domain ip isn’t blacklisted however certain Google workspace ips are but they still go to spam every time any tips on setting up server side mail with aws server 

FYI guys I used sendgrid in the end .. works fine now . Thanks for all the help also

Awesome!  Glad you got it squared away!