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notspoofed.comSPF · DKIM · DMARC

Gmail & Yahoo Compliance Checker

One checklist against the bulk sender requirements. The DNS side is checked live; the parts no domain-only check can confirm are marked as unverified rather than quietly passed.

The selector and IP are optional, but without them those two checks report as unverified rather than guessing. Both are in the headers of any message you sent.

What a domain check can and cannot tell you

Five of the twelve requirements are visible in DNS: whether you publish SPF and whether it is valid, whether a DKIM key exists at a selector you name, whether you publish DMARC, whether you have MX records, and whether your sending IP has forward-confirmed reverse DNS. Those are checked here and now.

The other four are not in DNS at all. One-click unsubscribe is two message headers plus the condition almost everyone misses — that both must be covered by your DKIM signature. DMARC alignment is a property of each message, not of your records: a vendor can pass SPF perfectly for its own envelope domain and still fail DMARC for you. Your spam complaint rate is measured inside Gmail and has no public source. And a DNS lookup that times out has established nothing at all.

So this tool reports four states rather than two. A green tick means it was checked and passed. A cross means it was checked and failed. “Verify with the header check” means it cannot be established from a domain and here is the tool that can settle it. “Could not check” means the lookup did not complete — which is not the same as a failure, and treating it as one would send you to fix something that may be perfectly fine.

The requirements explained in full covers each one, who it applies to, and the 5,000-a-day threshold nuance.

Finishing the check

Two of the unverified items are settled by pasting real headers:

  • One-click unsubscribe checker — reads the List-Unsubscribe headers and every DKIM signature’s h= tag, which is where this requirement silently fails.
  • Header analyzer — shows which mechanism passed and whether it aligned with your From domain. It runs entirely in your browser.
  • Bounce decoder — if receivers are already refusing your mail, paste a bounce and it names the provider’s own remedy.
  • Google Postmaster Tools — the one requirement nothing here can check. Your spam complaint rate is measured inside Gmail and published nowhere else.

Common questions

Do these rules apply to me?
If you send more than 5,000 messages a day to Gmail addresses, all of the bulk sender requirements apply to you. Below that, Google still requires SPF or DKIM, a valid PTR record and TLS — the parts that go from "required" to "strongly recommended" above the threshold are DMARC, one-click unsubscribe and the spam-rate limit. The count is per sending domain, across every system you send from, and once you cross it you are treated as a bulk sender from then on.
Why does it say "verify remaining items" when everything passed?
Because a domain-only check cannot confirm all of the requirements. One-click unsubscribe and DMARC alignment live in message headers, and your spam complaint rate is measured inside Gmail. A checker that shows those as green after looking only at DNS is telling you something it did not verify. This one marks them unverified and links to the tool that can settle each one.
Is p=none enough for DMARC?
Yes, for the requirement. Google and Yahoo require a DMARC record and accept p=none, which blocks nothing and simply asks for reports. It is the right place to start, and reading those reports for four to six weeks is what makes moving to quarantine or reject safe rather than a gamble.
Why do I need a DKIM selector?
Because selectors cannot be listed from DNS. A DKIM key is published at selector._domainkey.yourdomain, and there is no way to enumerate which selectors exist — a key is only findable if you already know its name. Without one, this check reports "not verified" rather than guessing at common names and calling a miss a failure.
What is the sending IP for?
Reverse DNS. Both providers require the IP your mail leaves from to have a PTR record that resolves back to the same address. That is a property of the IP rather than of your domain, so it cannot be derived from the domain alone. If you send through a provider, their addresses are their responsibility and are normally configured correctly.
Does a pass here mean my mail will reach the inbox?
No, and nothing can promise that. These are the entry requirements: meeting them stops you being rejected for the reasons listed here. Whether a specific message reaches an inbox also depends on your reputation, your content and how recipients treat your mail — which is why the spam rate matters more than everything else on this page put together.