{"id":307,"date":"2025-11-18T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/freethought.uk\/kb\/google-gmail-rejecting-emails-spf-dkim-dmarc-setup-guide\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T15:00:00","slug":"google-gmail-rejecting-emails-spf-dkim-dmarc-setup-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.freethought.uk\/help\/google-gmail-rejecting-emails-spf-dkim-dmarc-setup-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"Google (Gmail) rejecting emails &#8211; SPF, DKIM &amp; DMARC setup guide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Description<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>If emails sent from your domain to Gmail addresses are being rejected or marked as undeliverable, this is usually because Google has tightened its email authentication requirements.<br>Your domain must now have the correct <strong>SPF<\/strong>, <strong>DKIM<\/strong>, and <strong>DMARC<\/strong> records in place to verify that emails are sent from authorised servers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You might see bounce messages such as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><em>\u201c550-5.7.26 This mail is unauthenticated, which poses a security risk\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>\u201cMessage rejected. Please ensure all sending domains have SPF and DKIM set up.\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Cause<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Google now requires all senders &#8211; including small businesses and transactional senders to meet its authentication standards.<br><br>If your domain is missing or has incorrect DNS records for <strong>SPF<\/strong>, <strong>DKIM<\/strong>, or <strong>DMARC<\/strong>, Gmail may reject your messages outright or deliver them to spam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Solution<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>You can fix this by ensuring that your domain\u2019s DNS has valid email authentication records.<br>In <strong>cPanel<\/strong>, open <strong>Email Deliverability<\/strong> to view or repair your DNS settings &#8211; this tool will automatically suggest the correct <strong>SPF<\/strong> and <strong>DKIM<\/strong> records for you to copy to your DNS host.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"banner-tip\">\ud83d\udc49 For step-by-step guidance, see Email Deliverbility in cPanel: <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.cpanel.net\/cpanel\/email\/email-deliverability-in-cpanel\/\">https:\/\/docs.cpanel.net\/cpanel\/email\/email-deliverability-in-cpanel\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If your email is still being rejected after updating SPF and DKIM, we recommend also adding a basic <strong>DMARC<\/strong> record:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>Name: _dmarc\nType: TXT\nValue: v=DMARC1; p=none;<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p>Allow up to 4 hours for DNS propagation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Description If emails sent from your domain to Gmail addresses are being rejected or marked as undeliverable, this is usually because Google has tightened its email authentication requirements.Your domain must now have the correct SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records in place to verify that emails are sent from authorised servers.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cpanel","category-email","category-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freethought.uk\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freethought.uk\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freethought.uk\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freethought.uk\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freethought.uk\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.freethought.uk\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freethought.uk\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freethought.uk\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freethought.uk\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}