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Google seems to have broken email forwarding

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Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#61

Post by amelius »

jmount wrote: post #5

Obviously good email (deep in a conversation) being declared "spam" has been a problem with my business for some time also. I figure Google takes all email in a 2 step process (either intentional or accidental) 1: get a good fraction of the world on GMail 2: intermittently declare any non GMail mail spam ( greatly lowering the utility of non GMail). This isn't about any mass mailings or even mailing lists. This is ab…

It looks like gmail is broken, and your employees should just switch service-providers.

Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#63

Post by keithnoizu »

wpietri wrote: post #37
jmount wrote: post #5

Obviously good email (deep in a conversation) being declared "spam" has been a problem with my business for some time also. I figure Google takes all email in a 2 step process (either intentional or accidental) 1: get a good fraction of the world on GMail 2: intermittently declare any non GMail mail spam ( greatly lowering the utility of non GMail). This isn't about any mass mailings or even mailing lists. This is ab…

I've run my own mail server since before Google (yes, there was a time...), and I'm having similar problems. Right now I'm in the middle of a job hunt, and email from me (even to people who have already emailed me) is ending up in spam folders. It is infuriating. It is also apparently unfixable. Regular people cannot inquire as to why mail is not getting through. And amazingly, even having friends at Google does me n…

Do you have the various auth headers setup on for your mx records? I have to go through that ordeal occasionally when setting up outgoing emails for sendgrid or mailchimp campaigns. There are some things you can due to reduce the likely hood of mail being auto flagged as spam although in a lot of ways it is out of your hands.

Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#64

Post by karlshea »

blfr wrote: post #43
protomyth wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"He is using Gmail as a backend to his own mail setup" No, he is using a normal forward for those who want to receive their mail at gmail. He is not using gmail as his backend. You should read the original article.

I did read the article and that's exactly what he's doing. He forwards everything to Gmail, and then allows users to send from Gmail via his SMTP server (or maybe doing some spoofing but it wouldn't look so clean). Essentially outsourcing hosting of inboxes (but just inboxes) to Gmail. I run my own mail server, but most of my employees use Gmail. So I have forwarding set up: employee@dnalounge.com simply forwards to…

You are misunderstanding what is happening. He is not using Gmail, his employees are.

Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#65

Post by warfangle »

Touche wrote: post #57

I honestly can't figure out what he's attempting to do here. It sounds like he doesn't want to force a work email account on his employees. I don't think many people would have a problem with a work email, it's the norm after all, but fine. But he also doesn't want to add their personal email addresses to his address book (is this why he wants the @dnalounge.com addresses?) I'm not sure what this setup is attempting…

Neither am I.

Especially since you can configure gmail to serve as an interface to arbitrary third party POP3/IMAP services.

Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#66

Post by cwyers »

blfr wrote: post #27
jmount wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you would have to make everybody else stop using it.

In this case, only his employees. Because this is the issue, not general deliverability.

Right.

And, well, I am sympathetic to the argument that Google shouldn't do things the wrong way. But you really have no leverage to make them. Google offers the ability to use Gmail for e-mail sent to your domain, that's Google Apps For Business (or I guess Google Apps For Work). If that's unacceptable, you either have to deal with Google not caring about your needs (unless you're paying them, you're not the customer anyway) or do without Google.

Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#67

Post by myko »

jmount wrote: post #5

Obviously good email (deep in a conversation) being declared "spam" has been a problem with my business for some time also. I figure Google takes all email in a 2 step process (either intentional or accidental) 1: get a good fraction of the world on GMail 2: intermittently declare any non GMail mail spam ( greatly lowering the utility of non GMail). This isn't about any mass mailings or even mailing lists. This is ab…

When I was being recruited by Google I was frustrated by having great phone calls with recruiters, doing well in my phone interview and never hearing a followup.

Turned out all the emails from @google.com were going into my Gmail spam. I think they still do (no matter how many I've marked as not spam).

Oops.

Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#68

Post by bhauer »

eli wrote: post #18
jmount wrote: post #5

Obviously good email (deep in a conversation) being declared "spam" has been a problem with my business for some time also. I figure Google takes all email in a 2 step process (either intentional or accidental) 1: get a good fraction of the world on GMail 2: intermittently declare any non GMail mail spam ( greatly lowering the utility of non GMail). This isn't about any mass mailings or even mailing lists. This is ab…

I don't think it's malicious. Running mail servers and filtering spam is not easy.

Which ironically is the reason I most often hear from Gmail advocates/apologists for why they advocate Gmail over running your own e-mail server.

I don't disagree. E-mail is a mess. Still, on the whole, for any person or organization with modest technical chops, I feel the freedom and decentralization (which is a positive for the entire ecosystem) is reason alone for retaining control by self-hosting.

Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#69

Post by jackweirdy »

keithnoizu wrote: post #63
wpietri wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've run my own mail server since before Google (yes, there was a time...), and I'm having similar problems. Right now I'm in the middle of a job hunt, and email from me (even to people who have already emailed me) is ending up in spam folders. It is infuriating. It is also apparently unfixable. Regular people cannot inquire as to why mail is not getting through. And amazingly, even having friends at Google does me n…

Do you have the various auth headers setup on for your mx records? I have to go through that ordeal occasionally when setting up outgoing emails for sendgrid or mailchimp campaigns. There are some things you can due to reduce the likely hood of mail being auto flagged as spam although in a lot of ways it is out of your hands.

https://www.mail-tester.com is a great tool for testing this.

Re: Google seems to have broken email forwarding

#70

Post by fragmede »

reidrac wrote: post #17

It's been years since I last did some serious email hosting, but it looks like the SPF rule is the problem. Google is forwarding mail for dnalounge.com but the SPF rule doesn't allow Google's SMTP servers to do that: "v=spf1 a mx ptr ~all". That could explain why the email gets in the spam box; failing SFP should increase the "spam score". Besides I think SOFTFAIL shouldn't be used in production; and I also doubt tha…

~all is exactly the problem.

Shame this comment isn't further up.

I have a similar setup, and upon reading the RFC, I though ~all was the flag for the desired behavior. Turns out, it's not.

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