GMAIL and attachments......emails not getting to guests

[KAB-Dennis]

Hope that this is the correct forum section........

I send guests a very comprehensive Welcome Packet as well as a detailed confirmation email. Both of these emails have at two or more attachments. This year I have had many guests say that they never received there confirmation or Welcome Packet. They also do not find it in their spam.

I have seemed to find that these are GMAIL guests. Just resent one to a guest through an old yahoo email and he then received it.

Does anyone know why this is happening now and not before. I have been away from renting and wondering if gmail made some alteration to their emails.

If this is so I need to find a work around as I find that sending more info eliminates loads of questions.

[Bunny]

I've recently had the same problem sending guests attachments to a Yahoo email address. I got around it by sending the documents as a PDF in the end.

[greenbarn]

I often find that emails with attachments are marked as spam by gmail, but do normally (but maybe not always?) arrive so the guest needs to check their spam folder.

It's a PITA, but not on the same scale as hotmail, outlook and all the other Microsoft mail clients that are more than likely to just discard emails with attachments and/or links. The recipient hasn't got a clue that it was ever sent, and often don't know there's a common problem with these providers. ("Oh, that's odd - it's never happened before." Yes it has..... you just don't know about it.)
Getting the recipient to add you to their safe list seems to help, as does having a previous email exchange, but I'm not aware of anything guaranteed so for these troublesome ones I always send a plain text email asking them to confirm they've received the important one.

From what Bunny says I need to check if all the attachments I send (it depends on the nature of the booking) are in PDF format; I have a feeling some aren't so could be worth a few minutes' work.

[kevsboredagain]

Can you not host them online somehow so no need to send attachments? Even something like Google docs would do or even Dropbox. Your email may still get blocked with a link but possibly less likely than with an attachment. Just guessing.

[e-richard]

...Even something like Google docs would do....

You would think so, wouldn't you ?

But on checking my gmail spam box recently, I found two (genuine, non spam) emails from google mail themselves advising users of some feature or other.

It really is quite surprising how unreliable electronic mail is these days

[greenbarn]

Can you not host them online somehow so no need to send attachments? Even something like Google docs would do or even Dropbox. Your email may still get blocked with a link but possibly less likely than with an attachment. Just guessing.

I'm really not sure if it's the attachments, the links or both that activate the destruct mechanism. My gut feeling was that it was more likely to be the clickable links so I didn't see the point in providing a link to the attachments, but I've got nothing to back that up with. Do you think it's more likely to be the attachments?

When I get an enquiry from someone with a hotmail address (and latterly a gmail address), I do tend to wonder if it's worth all the extra hassle trying to reply (on a bad day, anyway!)

[kevsboredagain]

Can you not host them online somehow so no need to send attachments? Even something like Google docs would do or even Dropbox. Your email may still get blocked with a link but possibly less likely than with an attachment. Just guessing.

I'm really not sure if it's the attachments, the links or both that activate the destruct mechanism. My gut feeling was that it was more likely to be the clickable links so I didn't see the point in providing a link to the attachments, but I've got nothing to back that up with. Do you think it's more likely to be the attachments?

When I get an enquiry from someone with a hotmail address (and latterly a gmail address), I do tend to wonder if it's worth all the extra hassle trying to reply (on a bad day, anyway!)

I'm not sure but most emails these days from a commercial source have links. They don't all get blocked. The only attachment I would ever consider allowing from an unknown source is a PDF. Again it's unlikely a PDF would be blocked.

I've actually had less problems with Hotmail this year than in the past. I think the global spam volumes are decreasing but malicious attachments are definitely on the increase. I get 4 or 5 every single day.

[NeatandPicky]

I use a Gmail account for the rental business (yes, I know it doesn't look as professional)... I regularly send emails with links and pdf attachments without a problem. I use a Chrome extension called Hubspot (free) to keep track of whether emails have been read.

Are your attachments in pdf form Kathleen? If not, I'd convert them, or do as Kev suggested and host them online in Dropbox or Google Docs.

[greenbarn]

I use a Gmail account for the rental business (yes, I know it doesn't look as professional)... I regularly send emails with links and pdf attachments without a problem.

It's sending these emails to rather than from gmail accounts that's the problem.

[kevsboredagain]

It's sending these emails to rather than from gmail accounts that's the problem.

Have you checked if your domain is on any of the blacklists just to be sure?

[greenbarn]

It's sending these emails to rather than from gmail accounts that's the problem.

Have you checked if your domain is on any of the blacklists just to be sure?

Yes - good point, and it's something I do keep an eye on, and is part of the regular status reports I get from MXtoolbox.
I think, but let me know if I've got it wrong, that if emails are bounced because of domain blacklisting there's an error report generated - even if it's hotmail.

[Jonathan]

Hope that this is the correct forum section........

I send guests a very comprehensive Welcome Packet as well as a detailed confirmation email. Both of these emails have at two or more attachments. This year I have had many guests say that they never received there confirmation or Welcome Packet. They also do not find it in their spam.

I have seemed to find that these are GMAIL guests. Just resent one to a guest through an old yahoo email and he then received it.

Does anyone know why this is happening now and not before. I have been away from renting and wondering if gmail made some alteration to their emails.

If this is so I need to find a work around as I find that sending more info eliminates loads of questions.

If they use a client e-mail reader like Thunderbird, they may never see the spam as it is retained by the host server.
Jonathan

[akwe-xavante]

It's all a points system at work.

Each ISP or mail provider have a points system of there own including your own, why do I say this well..........

When an email is sent your own ISP or mail provider scans it before its actually sent on, then the receiving ISP or mail provider scans it too. Its also possible that other mail providers and ISP's scan it too in-between.

Your email will be scanned at least twice even more by different systems checking it for a variety of different things.

Malware and Viruses for a start and executable files, not just .exe but also a whole list of others including .doc, .docx, and all the other MS Office file formats.

Emails are scanned for specific wordage and phrases, they are scanned for HTML text and content inc links and hidden executable code. They are scanned for images contained within the mail rather than attachments. There email addresses are checked, the more people you send to all at once can cause a problem.

The file types and the size of those files are checked too

on and on and on.................

An attachment attracts points for file type, file size and is scanned for executable code, malware and viruses.

Wordage and phrases within the mail attracts points, HTML mail attracts a point over plain text, a link or hyperlink attracts points. More than one link in an email attracts even more points.

If your email is encrypted it scores a point or two because its then unreadable to the scanner and then a serious risk especially if it also has an attachment that's an MS file format or some other executable. Big companies get around this problem by asking mail providers to add there emails point or origin to a safe list. ALL Amazon, BBC, Microsoft, eBay, Paypal and so on and on are always delivered as ISP's and mail providers consider them to be safe.

and so on and on.............

The number of points the email attracts determines what happens to it. The lower the points the better its chances of getting passed on and delivered to its recipient. The greater the number of points it attracts the less likely it will get passed on and may even get deleted by your own ISP or mail provider.

There are different thresholds to the points systems, this is why some emails will appear in your inbox renamed with the text *** SPAM *** Subject... or it goes into your spam box where it stays for a short number of days before your mail provider automatically deletes it for you.

So an HTML email that contains one or more links and an attachment that isn't a PDF document is far more likely to get deleted by your own mail provider than a simple plain text email with no attachment at all. If the mail is HTML, contains a link, has an attachment and is being sent to two people or more at the same time then consider it deleted before you send it!!!!!!!!!!!

The various ISP's and Mail Providers have different rules and points systems applied to emails and constantly review them and change them on a regular basis so an email that gets through today may not get through tomorrow and vice versa.

[akwe-xavante]

This is a fairly good description of:

How to avoid Spam Filters: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307 ... 4gnvi4p43r

There is lot more online about how filters work and how to avoid them, just google "How to Avoid Spam Filters"

Most online info about avoiding spam filters is about professional spammers if I dare use this phrase as these people and companies would rather call these emails marketing emails much like traditional flyers and leaflets through our doors.

However ALL emails sent are subjected to the rules and tests in place used by our ISP's and mail providers.

An additional problem is more and more of us use an online mail provider rather than a client do send emails. Dodgy spammers use these same services, they get there accounts closed down, they create another account and start again. So using gmail, yahoo and Hotmail now live is a disadvantage before you start as this attracts points before your email is scanned. Using a client and having your own domain name email address to send and receive mail is far better.

Mailing clients include for those that don't know, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird etc etc but don't use the gmail, yahoo and Hotmail now live mail servers to send and receive your mail from your client. Instead use the mail servers provided by your ISP.

What is a domain name email address, an example would be if your cottage name is Rose Cottage you could try to register the domain name rosecottage.co.uk or rosecottage.com or .ie and so on then create as many email addresses as you like:

admin@rosecottage.co.uk
enquires@rosecottage.co.uk
sarah@rosecottage.co.uk
david@rosecottage.co.uk

and so on, using a client mailing program via your ISP's mailing servers and your own dedicated domain name email addresses not only reduces the chances of getting your emails deleted by spam filters but increases your customers confidence in you the sender, your business and is considered far more professional.

Someone who receives an email from Mr D Smith with an email address of david.smith@@rosecottage.co.uk is far more likely to open and read the email even if its in the spam box as they have booked the cottage and recognise the name.

If someone receives an email from "something@gmail.com", "something@live.com", "something@yahoo.com" its considered less important and more likely to be spam and is more likely to be ignored and even deleted.