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See the Cold Email category →Who These Rules Apply To
Gmail and Yahoo's 2024 rules apply to senders sending more than approximately 5,000 messages per day to Gmail or Yahoo Mail recipients. In practice, Google uses a more granular definition — close to 5,000 is the immediately enforced threshold, but lower-volume senders who violate the rules can still see temporary throttling.
The rules apply to both personal Gmail/Gmail Workspace accounts and personal Yahoo accounts. They cover mail sent from a primary domain and from subdomains. Both transactional mail (order confirmations, password resets) and bulk promotional email are in scope — Gmail does not draw a distinction; the volume threshold is what matters.
The good news: these requirements are not exotic. They are the same authentication and unsubscribe hygiene that every well-run ESP has been recommending for years.
The Checklist
Each item below is mandatory under Gmail's 2024 bulk sender rules. The "How to verify" line tells you the fastest way to confirm compliance today.
- ✓SPF record published, valid, and ending in -all or ~all
How to verify: Run a DNS TXT lookup at your domain root. Confirm exactly one record starts with v=spf1, ends with -all or ~all, and resolves in fewer than 10 DNS lookups.
- ✓DKIM signing on a d= that matches (or is a subdomain of) the visible From:
How to verify: Send a test email to a Gmail account, view the raw message source, and confirm a DKIM-Signature header with d=yourdomain.com (or a subdomain).
- ✓DMARC record at _dmarc.yourdomain.com with p=none minimum
How to verify: Look up _dmarc.yourdomain.com in DNS and confirm a TXT record starting with v=DMARC1 and a p= tag. rua= should also be present so you get aggregate reports.
- ✓Spam complaint rate below 0.3% (0.1% is the safe target)
How to verify: Subscribe to Google Postmaster Tools and watch your domain reputation and spam rate dashboards. Anything trending toward 0.3% requires immediate volume and content adjustments.
- ✓One-click unsubscribe header on every bulk message (RFC 8058)
How to verify: Send a test and inspect the headers for List-Unsubscribe-Post: List-Unsubscribe=One-Click. Gmail requires this header on bulk mail as of February 2024.
- ✓List-Unsubscribe: header is present and reachable
How to verify: The same message source should also show a List-Unsubscribe: header containing both a mailto: URL and an HTTPS URL pointing to working unsubscribe endpoints.
- ✓Valid PTR (reverse DNS) record for the sending IP
How to verify: Run nslookup or dig -x on the sending IP and confirm the PTR resolves to a hostname that resolves back to the same IP. Many ESPs handle this for you — confirm with your provider.
- ✓From: domain aligned with the SPF or DKIM authenticated domain
How to verify: Confirm either the envelope sender subdomain equals the From: domain (or a parent), or the DKIM d= equals the From: domain (or a parent). This is the DMARC alignment check.
- ✓Visible, working unsubscribe link in the message body
How to verify: Every bulk email should include a plain-text or HTML unsubscribe link visible to the user. Hidden unsubscribe or unsubscribe-only-via-replying is non-compliant.
- ✓TLS encryption for SMTP transmission
How to verify: Confirm your ESP uses STARTTLS on port 587 or implicit TLS on port 465 when delivering outbound mail. Unencrypted SMTP is a Gmail red flag.
How to Verify the Whole Stack
The rules above are essentially "have authentication and proper unsubscribe." The free validator below checks the authentication side in one DNS lookup — SPF record, DKIM selectors, DMARC policy and rua, and alignment — and tells you exactly which item is failing and why.
Check your Gmail compliance in 30 seconds
Enter your sending domain and get an instant authentication and alignment report — SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and the specific Gmail rule each finding relates to.
Run the free Gmail compliance check →For a deep walkthrough of how the three authentication protocols work together, see SPF, DKIM, and DMARC Explained →
What Happens if You Don't Comply
Google has described a soft-to-hard enforcement curve. Senders who fail the rules first see temporary throttling — a noticeable percentage of messages routed to spam, typically reported as a 30–75% inbox placement drop at Gmail. Persistent violators then see permanent rejection: messages refused at SMTP time, visible to senders as a bounce code identifying the failed rule.
For high-volume senders, Google also introduces phishing interstitial warnings: a full-page red warning page between Gmail and the message. This is reserved for the worst offenders and is what you want to avoid at all costs — once Gmail has inserted your domain into the phishing-warning bucket, recovery can take months.
The fix is always the same: bring your domain into compliance and ramp your volume back up gradually. Treating the 2024 rules as a one-time audit and not as ongoing standing policies is the most common cause of re-violations — once you are compliant, stay compliant.