Understanding message statuses
Every email that passes through Cleanbox is assigned a status. This status tells you exactly what happened to the message — whether it was delivered to your inbox, held for review, or rejected entirely. Understanding these statuses helps you stay in control of your email flow.
Status overview
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Pending | The message has been received by Cleanbox and is waiting to be processed. This state is usually very brief — most messages move to another status within seconds. |
| Delivered | The message has been successfully forwarded to your mailbox via IMAP. This is the ideal outcome for legitimate emails. |
| Quarantined | The message was flagged as suspicious but not outright rejected. It is being held in quarantine for your review. You can choose to deliver it to your inbox or delete it permanently. |
| Denied | The message was blocked by one of your rules — a contact rule (blocked sender), a filter rule, or because the sender is unsubscribed. Denied messages are not delivered to your inbox. |
| Rejected | The message was rejected at the server level before it was even accepted for processing. This typically happens when the sender's IP is on a blacklist (DNSBL) or fails authentication checks. |
| Snoozed | The message arrived outside of the delivery window set by Shield's Delivery Snoozer. It is being held and will be delivered automatically when the next delivery window opens. |
| Failed | Cleanbox attempted to deliver the message to your mailbox but the delivery failed. This is usually caused by IMAP connection issues, incorrect credentials, or a full mailbox. |
| Bounced | The message could not be delivered and a bounce notification was sent back to the original sender. This can happen when the destination address does not exist or the receiving server permanently rejects the message. |
How statuses are determined
When an email arrives at Cleanbox, it goes through multiple evaluation layers in order:
- IP blacklist check — The sender's IP is verified against DNSBL providers (Spamhaus, Barracuda, SpamCop). If blacklisted, the message is rejected immediately.
- Spam scoring — The message is analyzed and assigned a spam score. If the score exceeds your alias's spam threshold, the message is quarantined.
- Contact rules — If the sender is blocked or unsubscribed, the message is denied. If the sender is whitelisted, it skips further filtering.
- Filter rules — Your custom filters are evaluated in order. A matching filter can block, allow, or redirect the message.
- Shield rules — If Shield is enabled on the alias, rate limits, delivery windows, and gatekeeper rules are applied. Messages outside delivery windows are snoozed.
- Delivery — If the message passes all checks, Cleanbox delivers it to your mailbox via IMAP. The status becomes delivered on success or failed if delivery fails.
What you can do with each status
Quarantined messages
Quarantined messages are held for your review. From the quarantine view, you can:
- Deliver — Release the message to your inbox
- Delete — Permanently remove the message
- Train — Mark it as "not spam" to improve future filtering accuracy
Failed messages
If a message fails to deliver, check the following:
- Is your mailbox still connected? Go to your mailbox settings and verify the connection.
- Are your IMAP credentials still valid? Some providers require you to regenerate app-specific passwords periodically.
- Is your mailbox full? Free up space or upgrade your email storage.
You can retry delivery of a failed message from the message detail view.
Snoozed messages
Snoozed messages require no action. They will be automatically delivered when the next Shield delivery window opens. You can view the delivery schedule on the alias's Shield settings page.
Viewing your message history
All messages — regardless of status — are visible in your message history for the retention period of your plan (7 to 365 days, depending on your subscription). You can filter messages by status, alias, sender, or date range to quickly find what you're looking for.
Each message detail view includes the full spam report, showing exactly which spam rules were triggered and the resulting score. This transparency helps you understand why a message was quarantined or delivered, and lets you fine-tune your spam thresholds accordingly.
