An important tool in controlling incoming emails is the Allow and Block setting in your dashboard.
You can prevent future emails from spammers (Block) or you can ensure that important and valued email arrives in your inbox (Allow).
Allowlists and blocklists are considered heavy handed tools which should be used sparingly. Incorrect blocking can inadvertently block important emails. Allowlists can permit forged emails to bypass our filters, no matter how spammy the email looks.
How They Work
Allow Lists
Tells us that you would like all future emails to bypass our spam filters (we still will check for viruses and malware). By choosing 'Allow' you are trusting that this sending domain or address is safe for the foreseeable future. If that domain becomes compromised in the future your domain will also be vulnerable to these emails.
It's important to note that spammers count on major and popular domains being on the Allow list.
Block
Tells us you no longer want to receive any mail from a domain or email address. All future emails will be blocked and emails from that sender will be quarantined.
Tips for safe Allowlist Settings
- Do not Allow entire domains. Instead Allow specific email addresses rather than the entire domain
- A domain-based Allow list isn't as secure as an IP address-based list, because domains can be spoofed.
- Do not Allow major or popular domains. No banks, merchants, credit card companies, mobile carriers, Amazon or Microsoft (the two most often impersonated in the world)
- Ideally, Allow by sending IP/Server AND the email address for a more secure method.
- If you wish to Allow a major and/or popular domain, you can Allow the combination of IP/Server and domain in the Allow by IP/Server tab. That will ensure email from that domain only comes from the block of servers.
- Review your allowlistings regularly and update/edit. When they pile up they can build gaps in email security.
- Review your user's allowlistings to ensure they're following safe practices
- If your domain or user has hundreds or thousands of allowlists, they should all be reviewed and edited. This causes a major conflict with safe and efficient mail flow for the user or domain by not allowing our filters to do their job.
Tips for effective Blocking
- Add a domain/IP/Server to your domain-wide or user Block setting.
- In the case of bulk, opt-in marketing emails, which we consider 'ham', Block will largely be ineffective. In most cases blocking sending domains such as Amazonses or Mail Chimp will block other important emails from other services you regularly subscribe to.
- The sending email address changes with each opt-in marketing email making it impossible to Block
- Best method to no longer receive emails is to unsubscribe. Many opt-in mailings have safe and rigorous unsubscribe policies.
- Review your blocklists regularly and update/edit. When they pile up they can build gaps in email security.
- Review your user's blocklists to ensure they haven't inadvertently blocked an valid sender
- If your domain or user has hundreds or thousands of blocklists, they should all be reviewed and edited. This causes a major conflict with safe and efficient mail flow for the user or domain.
Additional Allow List Security
As a result of the large volume of phishing emails and forgeries received from these domains, we no longer permit allowlists of freemail domains such yahoo.com, gmail.com, hotmail.com.
You can still allow user@freemail.com but you will not be able to allow freemail.com
Tips
- For false-positives in quarantine the best method is to 'Recover' rather than just allowlist the sender. This will provide feedback for our Bayesian filters telling us it's not spam but legitimate mail.
- If your domain has hundreds or thousands of allowlists and blocklists and you're experiencing high volumes of false-positives and/or forgeries, it might be wise to delete all entries and start over. This will allow our filters to work as they were intended.
*Ask our Support team if you would like a review of your current listings and make any security recommendations. Contact support@mailroute.net.
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