Authenticating Pobox Emails with SPF

Why are my Pobox emails going to Spam?

If you have a problem with Pobox emails going to spam, that is, going to the junk folder of your recipients, then it is very likely an issue with your email authentication. Emails failing authentication, be they failing SPF, failing DKIM, or failing DMARC is common, as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are often not properly implemented by domain administrators. Often, the main cause of Pobox emails being blocked is due to the Pobox emails failing DMARC, which in the case of Pobox, is usually due to a misconfiguration of SPF.

How to stop Pobox emails going to Junk.

The first step to preventing Pobox email going to spam is to retrieve a failed message and access its header information. This will allow you to quickly diagnose whether any authentication issues such as DKIM or DMARC are flagging your email as spam, instructing the recipient sender to move it to junk. Simply paste the email headers into our free Stellastra Deliverability Tool, which you can use freely with no log in required. Our deliverability tool should allow you to avoid Pobox emails from going to spam, or at least rule out authentication as the issue.

How to remove ‘via pobox.help’ or ‘on behalf of pobox.help’

Another example of where a Pobox DKIM misconfiguration is to blame, is if your recipients report seeing the message as ‘via pobox.help’ or ‘on behalf of pobox.help’ and that the emails typically end up in spam or junk. The Stellastra Email Deliverability tool above will confirm this prognosis, however, you may also wish to configure DKIM for Pobox by logging in to your Pobox account to check to see if you have followed the following article to configure your Pobox dkim setup to authenticate your domain.

How to stop Pobox Failing DMARC

To ensure that your Pobox campaigns pass DMARC and get delivered to your prospects, it is important to ensure that SPF passes authentication for your domain. A common mistake is to omit the authorization for a sender in the SPF record. However, in order for Pobox email to pass authentication for your own domain, it is necessary to include their SPF entry, which is inserted into your own SPF record. For specific information for Pobox, see their own guide. If you wish to verify the above, paste the message headers for a failed Pobox message into our Pobox email testing tool

How can I gain visibility over who is sending with my domain?

Stellastra’s email deliverability visibility tool takes reports from all modern inbox providers including Google (Gmail), Microsoft (Outlook), Mimecast, and Zoho to show who is sending email using your domain. This ensures that 1) you are monitoring your outbound emails to diagnose why emails are going to spam, and 2) that you take steps to lock down your domain, become secure, and comply with Google and Yahoo’s 2024 bulk email sending policies.

How can I ensure I am compliant with Yahoo and Google’s 2024 Email Sending DMARC Guidelines?

Our email deliverability visibility tool will indicate whether you are compliant with Google and Yahoo’s February 2024 email guidelines for bulk senders. Google sends us reports alongside all modern email inbox providers.

Stellastra was a massive help and took minutes fixing an email issue that we thought would be extremely time consuming. Stellastra was a hub of knowledge and we couldn't recommend them enough!

Brittani Guerra, Marketing Executive, UK Cyber Cluster Collaboration

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