emailrules.today

Coverage

39 rules on purpose — not 400 of folklore.

A curated shelf: primary sources only. Thin and checkable beats fat and embarrassing. Topics, jurisdictions, ownership, and what we still refuse to invent.

39
rules total
38
in force
15
genuinely yours

By what goes wrong

  • Consent and tracking

    Permission to email, permission to measure, and why they are not the same thing.

    13 rules
  • Authentication

    SPF, DKIM, DMARC, alignment, and the traps that pass a checker but fail in the wild.

    4 rules
  • Provider rules

    What Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft and Apple require, with the numbers they enforce on.

    7 rules
  • Content and claims

    What a subject line may promise, and what happens when the promise is not true.

    5 rules
  • AI disclosure

    When AI-generated copy and imagery must be labelled, and when they must not.

    1 rule
  • Measurement

    Which numbers still mean something, and which ones your platform is flattering.

    4 rules
  • Bounces and hygiene

    Suppression, retries, and the classifications every platform gets slightly wrong.

    5 rules

By jurisdiction

Europe is first-class where we have sources: EU-wide ePrivacy / AI / accessibility, plus France, Germany, Italy, and UK PECR as its own row. Missing Member States means we have not shipped a sourced page yet — not that those markets are irrelevant.

By ownership

  • Your ESP already did thisMainstream platforms do this automatically. You can move on.1
  • Part platform, part youThe platform covers the mechanical bit. The judgement is still yours.18
  • This one needs youNo platform does this for you. One concrete move, then you are done.15
  • Good to know — nothing to fixChanges a number you report or a risk you carry, not today's task list.5

Named providers

  • Gmail3
  • Yahoo1
  • Microsoft2
  • Apple3
  • Klaviyo2

By status

  • In force38
  • Upcoming1
  • Proposed0
  • Superseded0

What we skip on purpose

Not because you are not smart enough — because the evidence is thin or the category is dishonest.

  • Inbox-placement % and seed-panel scores (we refuse the category).
  • Warm-up rate folklore with no primary provider number.
  • ESP bounce ordinals where the vendor’s own page contradicts itself.
  • Member-state law outside the jurisdictions listed above.
  • Paid monitoring / Klaviyo OAuth scans (not built; free checks only).

Corrections and missing rules: corrections@emailrules.today. Methodology lives on /methodology.

FAQ

Awkward questions

Who is this actually for?

People who ship email and are too busy to re-read every PDF: week-one marketers, lifecycle/CRM, deliverability, multi-country ops, DTC brands, agencies — on Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Braze, HubSpot, SFMC, or something else. Pick your tool and geos so product-specific pages only appear when they match. EU and UK are first-class filters. Not for people who sell tools about email and need a fake score to demo.

Why only ~40 rules? Isn’t that… thin?

On purpose. A wall of 400 undated “best practices” is how you look busy and still get burned. Every page needs a primary source we actually read. Thin and checkable beats fat and folklore. Europe, bulk inbox rules, measurement honesty, and protocol topics like BIMI/DMARC policy are on the shelf when we can cite them — not every Member State and not every vendor myth. Coverage map lists what we still refuse to invent.

Is this legal advice?

No. If it were, you’d have a billable hour and a longer PDF. This is a dated operator reference written by an email geek. Confirm anything high-stakes with counsel who knows your facts. Same for “will this make me compliant?” — no tool does that. Lawyers and judges do. We say what the sources say and what to do first on Monday.

Why no trust score out of 100?

Because we refuse to invent a number you can’t audit. Fake scores sell seed tests and panic. You get findings, dates, and links. If that feels less exciting than a red dial, good — you’re not the red-dial customer.

Why should I trust you more than my ESP’s blog?

ESPs sell seats. Seed-score vendors sell fear. AI invents citations when nobody watches. We sell nothing today — no pixels, no placement scores, no affiliate — so we can say when a tool is the problem. A human verifies, dates, and corrects in public. Tools may help draft; they do not ship unsourced claims. Check the primary links. Fail that test and leave.

Do I need an account?

No. Filters live in this browser and the URL. Share the link. That’s it. Accounts come later only if they earn it — not so we can nurture you about email.

I’m an agency. Where’s multi-client mode?

We tried a client-name CRM on the setup card. It made the product feel like work before it felt useful. Role filters + copy link + one-page brief (optional PDF title) is enough for now. Complexity comes back when the free shelf is habit, not before.

Is the quiet changelog a bug?

No. Quiet means nothing material moved. We don’t invent urgency so the homepage looks “alive.” Sticky risks still show what usually needs a person when the market is still.