Suspended mail
Suspended mail is mail a support mailbox received but did not turn into a ticket. Outpost holds it so someone can look before it is lost: spam, mail that fails sender authentication, automatic replies, and floods from one sender. This page lists why mail is held, how long it is kept, and what you can do with it. For how email becomes tickets, see Email to ticket.
Suspended mail is under Settings > Suspended mail, beside
Mailboxes. You need mailbox:manage to see it, because held messages can
carry anything a stranger sent.
Reasons and how long mail is kept
Section titled “Reasons and how long mail is kept”Each message has a reason and a class. Held mail is released in one click. Quarantined mail may be unsafe, so Outpost asks you to confirm before it releases it. Messages are deleted automatically on the date in the Deleted on column.
| Reason | Class | Why it is held | Kept for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sender not verified | Held | The sender could not be verified, and the mailbox is set to Hold in Suspended mail for review. See Sender verification. | 30 days |
| Automatic reply | Held | An out-of-office reply, bounce, or other automatic message that does not reply to a ticket. | 7 days |
| Too many messages | Held | One sender opened 20 new tickets in the last hour. | 30 days |
| Blocked sender | Held | The sender or their domain is blocked. | 7 days |
| Marked as spam | Quarantined | A spam filter in front of the mailbox flagged it. | 30 days |
| Failed sender authentication | Quarantined | The message fails DMARC for its From domain, and the sender is not allowed. | 30 days |
| Too large | Quarantined | The message is larger than 35 MB. | 30 days |
| Could not be read | Quarantined | The message is malformed and could not be parsed. | 30 days |
Mail loops and floods from automated systems are stopped automatically and never become tickets. They do not appear here.
When a mailbox has 50 or more held messages, Outpost raises an information alert, Held mail for the mailbox’s address is waiting for review. It clears when the count drops below 25.
Find a message
Section titled “Find a message”Search covers the sender and the subject, never the message body. Filter by Mailbox, Reason, or Class. Select a sender to open the message.
The message shows the From, To, Cc, subject, mailbox, and when it arrived. Sender checks shows the DMARC, SPF, and DKIM results and whether the sender domain is aligned. Text preview shows the text of the message only, never its HTML, because a held message may be hostile. Attachments are listed by name and size. Download the original (.eml) downloads the message as it arrived.
Act on a message
Section titled “Act on a message”| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Release | Turns the message into a ticket, or adds it to the ticket it replies to. Quarantined mail asks you to confirm first. A released message counts as verified, so the ticket sends email as usual. |
| Allow sender | Releases the message, as Release does, and allows the sender’s address, so their future mail goes straight to tickets. |
| Block sender | Blocks the sender’s address and discards the message. Their future mail is held as Blocked sender. |
| Block domain | Blocks everyone at the sender’s domain and discards the message. |
| Discard | Deletes the message. It cannot be released later. |
Block, block domain, and discard always ask you to confirm.
A released message runs through the remaining checks. If it fails a different one, it is held again under the new reason. A released Too large message becomes a ticket without the attachments over 25 MB.
Allow and block apply to the mailbox the message arrived on. An allowed sender is ticketed as verified even when their mail fails DMARC, so allow only senders you trust. A block wins over an allow.
Release a message
Section titled “Release a message”- Go to Settings > Suspended mail.
- Select the sender to open the message.
- Check Sender checks and Text preview.
- Select Release, or Allow sender to release it and allow the sender.
- For quarantined mail, select Release or Release and allow to confirm.
The page shows Released. It is ticket and the ticket number, as a link to the ticket.
Related
Section titled “Related”Content is licensed CC BY 4.0. Code samples are MIT. Outpost and the Outpost mark are trademarks of Outpost Business Solutions, PBC and are not covered by either license.