Who this is for: Recruiters whose sequence emails aren't being delivered, are landing in spam, or are generating bounce errors.

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Email delivery issues in sequences fall into three categories: the email never left Recruiterflow (a sending error), the email left but didn't arrive (a delivery failure), or the email arrived but landed in spam. Each has a different cause and fix. Work through the relevant checks below based on what you're seeing.

Emails not sending at all

Email integration disconnected

What you'll see: Recipients in Error status. Error message: "Email provider integration is disconnected."

Root cause: The sender's Gmail or Outlook account has disconnected from Recruiterflow — typically after a password change, a security review, or session expiry.

Fix:

Go to Settings → Profile → Mailboxes
Find the email integration (Gmail or Outlook) and click Connect
Complete the OAuth flow
Retry affected recipients from the sequence Errors tab

Daily sending cap reached

What you'll see: Steps are not sending but recipients are not in Error status — they're In Progress or queued.

Root cause: The sender has reached their daily email cap for the rolling 24-hour window. Sends are queued, not failed.

Fix: Wait — Recruiterflow will send queued emails automatically as capacity frees up throughout the day. If this is happening consistently, ask your Admin to review daily email caps in Settings.

Sending temporarily blocked by email provider

What you'll see: Recipients in Error status. Error message: "Your email provider has temporarily blocked sending due to high volume."

Root cause: Gmail or Outlook has flagged sending activity as suspicious and applied a temporary rate block at their end.

Fix:

Wait several hours and retry from the Errors tab
If this recurs: reduce your daily sending limits in Deliverability & Rate Limiting
Consider distributing recipients across more senders (round-robin) to reduce per-sender volume

Missing or invalid recipient data

What you'll see: Recipients in Error. Error messages include: "This recipient does not have an email address." / "Email format is invalid." / "Token could not be resolved."

Fix: See Troubleshooting: Recipients Stuck in Error for fix steps for each specific error type.

Emails sent but not arriving

Hard bounce — address doesn't exist

What you'll see: Recipients in Error or Bounced status. Error message: "Email to [address] bounced."

Root cause: The email address is permanently invalid — wrong domain, deleted account, or typo.

Fix: Do not retry. Update the email address on the recipient's profile, or stop the sequence for this recipient if you don't have an alternative address. See Managing Errors in Sequences.

Soft bounce — temporary delivery failure

What you'll see: Recipient stays In Progress or enters a temporary error state that resolves on retry.

Root cause: The recipient's mailbox is temporarily full, their server is down, or there's a transient network issue.

Fix: Recruiterflow retries soft bounces automatically. If the error persists after 24 hours and the recipient is still in Error, retry manually from the Errors tab.

Email too large

What you'll see: Recipients in Error. Error message: "This email could not be delivered because the message size is too large."

Fix: Open Edit Content for the recipient, remove or compress attachments and inline images, save, and retry. For a systemic fix, edit the step itself to reduce attachment size for all future recipients.

Recipient mailbox full

What you'll see: Recipients in Error. Error message: "The recipient's mailbox is full and cannot receive emails."

Fix: Wait 24–48 hours and retry. This resolves on its own as the recipient clears their inbox.

Email verification failed

What you'll see: Recipients in Error. Error message: "This email was flagged as undeliverable during verification."

Fix: Update the email address if you have a better one. If the address is correct, retry once — a second failure confirms the address is problematic. Consider removing this recipient from the sequence.

Emails arriving in spam

This is a deliverability issue — the email is reaching the recipient's server but being filtered before the inbox. Recruiterflow cannot guarantee inbox placement, but there are steps you can take to improve it:

Factor	What to check / do
Sending volume	Sending too many emails per day from a single sender is a spam signal. Reduce your daily cap or spread recipients across more senders.
Sending pattern	All emails dispatching at the exact same second looks automated.
New sender account	Brand-new email accounts have no sending reputation.
Email content	Spam trigger words, excessive links, all-image emails, and large attachments all increase spam scores. Keep content text-heavy and conversational.
Domain authentication	SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records should be configured for your sending domain. Contact your IT team or domain registrar to verify these are set up correctly.
Unsubscribe link	Emails without an unsubscribe link are more likely to be marked as spam. Enable Unsubscribe Footer in Settings → Automation Settings → Sequence Configurations.
Recipient list quality	Sending to old, unverified, or purchased lists generates high bounce rates and spam complaints — both of which damage sender reputation. Use verified, opted-in data where possible.