How do I find and fix blocked email addresses?

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Sometimes clients have an email address that is blocked, so that Animana no longer sends emails to that address. This protects the reputation of your practice’s email, which helps your reminders, invoices and mailings reach pet owners. This article explains how to find these clients and how to get them receiving your emails again.

Step-by-step instructions

Go to Worklist > Email Issues.
Check the list of clients whose email address is blocked. The “Client” column shows the client and the “Email address” column shows the blocked address. The “Reason” column shows why the address is blocked: “Couldn’t be delivered” or “Marked as spam”. More about this.

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Tip: To show only one type of issue, select a reason in the drop-down menu (default: “All reasons”). To also see clients who are no longer active, select “Include inactive clients”.
Take action, depending on the reason:
- Couldn’t be delivered: the email address is wrong or no longer exists. Ask the pet owner for their current email address and update it in the client file.
- Marked as spam: the pet owner marked one of your mailings as spam. The pet owner can unmark the email as spam in their inbox.
Open the client file and update the email address in the Client Data.

Emails to the new address are sent normally. If no client has an email issue, the page shows “There are no email addresses with issues”.

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Tip: Check the Email Issues page regularly, and fix or remove addresses that are wrong. This keeps your email reputation healthy.

More about this

What does “Couldn’t be delivered” mean?

This reason means that an email could not be delivered (a “bounce”). A “hard bounce” means that the email address does not exist or can permanently not receive email. When an address bounces, Animana blocks all emails to that address.

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An invalid email address is the most common cause for bounces. This could be due to:

inclusion of spaces, foreign or odd characters, e.g. “joe bloggs@abc.de”
a missing second part (domain), e.g. “joe.bloggs” instead of “joe.bloggs@abc.de”
wrong domain name, e.g. “bloggs@xyz.de” instead of “joe.bloggs@abc.de”

What does “Marked as spam” mean?

This reason means that the pet owner marked one of your mailings as spam (a “complaint”).

What does “Include inactive clients” do?

By default, the Email Issues page only shows clients who are active. Select “Include inactive clients” to also show clients who are marked as inactive. This is useful if you can’t find a client in the list, or if you want to check or clean up the email addresses of former clients.

Why does Animana block these addresses?

Email providers such as Gmail and Outlook keep a reputation score for each sender. It is mostly based on bounces (emails sent to addresses that don’t exist) and spam complaints. Every practice has its own email reputation. A poor email reputation can cause:

Emails ending up in spam folders, or being blocked.
Sending being paused. While sending is paused, no emails are sent from Animana, including appointment reminders and invoices.

How can I keep a good email reputation?

Keep your clients’ email addresses up to date. Fix or remove addresses mentioned on the Email Issues page.
Only send mailings to clients who agreed to receive them. Never import bought or old email lists.
Fill in the “Delivery notifications email” in Settings > General Settings > Outgoing Email. This email address receives an alert when emails bounce or are marked as spam. Act on these alerts as soon as possible.
If you have set up your own domain, keep all DNS records in place after your domain is validated.

Can I see which emails were delivered?

Animana has no delivery log for individual emails. Bounces and spam complaints are sent to the “Delivery notifications email”. Blocked addresses are listed on the Email Issues page.

A pet owner says they never receive our emails. What should I check?

Check that the email address in the client file is correct and look the client up in the “Client” column on the Email Issues page. Pet owners with an address that bounced are blocked automatically. Select “Include inactive clients” if the client is no longer active.

Updated on 27 October 2026

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