The simplest way to check if your emails are properly authenticated

First of all, why do you need to know this?
You might’ve noticed that spam filters are becoming more and more demanding. So, if you want your recipients to read your emails, you need to have the perfect setup. Especially if you’re sending cold emails. 
This is where DNS records come in.
Specifically, we are interested in three types of DNS records - SPF, DMARC, and DKIM.In simple words, each type helps you look like a trusted sender, and not like a spammer. 

We don’t want to bore you with the tech data, you can always read something much more detailed if you're interested.
Now, let us show what you have to do to check if your emails are authenticated properly. 

How to check email authentication using Gmail

What you need — Two mailboxes.One of them must be your «email marketing» or «cold email» mailbox. The second one — any other mailbox, preferably Gmail or Outlook.
Step 1. Open your «cold email» mailbox. Let's call it .moc.niamod%40nosrep In my case, it will be oc.neilame%40ofni hosted on Gsuite. 
Step 2. Press «Compose»

Step 3. In the «Recipients» field put the email address of your second mailbox. Make sure it’s not the one that you want to check!
In my case, I'm checking the oc.neilame%40ofni mailbox. Thus, I'm sending the email to my other mailbox (in this case, moc.1741a%40navi).
Then, add a subject line and fill the text field with your content. Use whatever you want.
For example:

Step 4. Hit the «Send» button and go to the recipient’s mailbox. The email should be delivered within 30 seconds. 
My email arrived to my Inbox. If you haven’t gotten yours, check the Spam and Promotions tabs.

Step 5. Open the letter and find a button with 3 dots on the right side of the page. 
Press it. Then, press the «Show original» button from the drop-down menu. 

Step 6. Here is what you're going to see:

Now, we are looking for the three abbreviations — SPF, DKIM, DMARC.
Ideally, all of them should have the «PASS» status. That means that they passed the verification and your email is completely authenticated.
Sometimes, you will see something like «SOFTFAIL» or «NEUTRAL», or some of the abbreviations will be missing. It means that you need to add this record as soon as you can or replace it with a correct one. 

How to check Email authentification using Outlook

Now you know how to check if your email is authenticated using Gmail. Surely, many of you also use Outlook. 
The logic is the same. You find the three dots, press them, go to the «View» submenu, and choose «View message source»:

Have a look at the text that comes up and find the records you’re looking for:

All three are visible and have the «PASS» status? Good. Anything missing? Not so good.

What do you do if there are records missing? 

Option 1 — Contact your mailbox admin and ask to fix the issues. He has to do something for his bread and butter, doesn't he? :D
Option 2 — Ask us to help you with those records or even the whole email marketing campaign.
Hit the button below if you have any questions!