# Why was my email suppressed?

> A suppressed email wasn't sent because the address is on your suppression list. Learn why addresses get added and how to safely remove one.

This article explains the **Suppressed** status, how addresses end up on your suppression list and when it's safe to take one off.

## Symptoms

- The email shows **Suppressed** in **Email API → Emails**, with the tooltip "Recipient is on the suppression list".
- The **Deliveries** tab shows `Recipient (ada@example.com) is on the suppression list (reason: …)`.
- Your webhook receives an `email.suppressed` event.
- A campaign report counts the address under **Suppressed**.

## Cause

Emailit doesn't send to addresses on your workspace's suppression list. This protects your sender reputation, because mailbox providers penalize senders who keep mailing addresses that bounce or complain. An address is added:

| How | Reason you'll see |
| --- | --- |
| A second hard bounce within 24 hours | `too many bounces` |
| All 7 delivery attempts failed | `too many soft fails` |
| A bounce report arrived after delivery | `bounce` |
| The recipient marked your email as spam | `complaint` |
| Someone on your team added it in the dashboard, by API or by CSV import | The reason they entered |

The automatic rules depend on your workspace's auto-suppression setting in **Workspace → Settings**, under **Suppressions**. On Pay as you go it's always **Bounces and Complaints**. Pro and Business can change it.

Suppressions of type `recipient` block all sending. Campaigns also skip addresses with the other types: `bounce`, `complaint` and `unsubscribe`.

## Fix

1. **Find the entry.** Go to **Email API → Suppressions** and search for the address. Check the **Reason**, **Type** and **Created** columns.

2. **Decide whether to remove it.** Remove it only if you know the address works now and the person wants your email. For example, they fixed a full mailbox or asked you to resume. Don't remove addresses that complained: sending to them again leads to more complaints.

3. **Delete the suppression.** Select the entry and delete it, or call [Delete a suppression](/docs/api-reference/suppressions/delete/) with the email address as the ID.

4. **Resend.** Select **Retry** on the original email, or send it again from your app. Retry creates a new email and charges credits again. If the address is still suppressed, the new email is suppressed too.

5. **Prevent it next time.** Validate addresses at sign-up with [email verification](/docs/email-verification/), and remove bounced addresses from your own database when you receive `email.bounced` webhooks.

To expire a suppression automatically, set `keep_until` when you create it. See [Manage suppressions](/docs/suppressions/manage/) and [Bounces and complaints](/docs/deliverability/bounces-and-complaints/).

## Still stuck?

If an address keeps getting suppressed and you believe it's valid, [contact support](/contact/) or ask in [Discord](https://discord.emailit.com) with the email ID and the suppression reason.

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Source: https://emailit.com/docs/kb/why-was-my-email-suppressed/