emailrules.today
Stop 2 of 8WorkingThe hour before send

One-click unsubscribe

Inbox apps can unsubscribe someone with one click using special email headers — no landing page required.

Say it out loud

Gmail's own unsubscribe button. Our platform adds it, and it has to be two headers, not one.

Gmail and Yahoo require bulk senders to support RFC 8058 one-click unsubscribe: a `List-Unsubscribe` header and a `List-Unsubscribe-Post` header. The mail app posts once and the person is out, with no landing page and no confirmation step. Mainstream platforms add both automatically on marketing sends.

2 days
to process an unsubscribe
Google and Yahoo sender guidelines
Email headerBoth lines, or it does not countPublished valuesscrolls →
List-Unsubscribe: <https://email.aurora.com/u/9f3z>,
<mailto:unsub@aurora.com>

This header has existed since 1998. On its own it is not one-click and never was.

List-Unsubscribe-Post: List-Unsubscribe=One-Click

This is the line that makes it RFC 8058. It is the one that is missing when a checker says you fail.

Half of RFC 8058 is not RFC 8058. If you only see the first header, the mail app will not show its own unsubscribe button.

Your platform

Klaviyo, Mailchimp and friends do this automatically.

What goes wrong

A custom sending setup, or a transactional stream repurposed for marketing, that ships the first header and not the second. Your platform adds both to campaigns; it does not necessarily add them to whatever you built yourself.

Check it yourself

Paste a received message's headers and look for both lines

Run it now →

The dated rules behind this

A definition is not a citation. These are the pages with the primary source, the date it was published, and what to do about it.

See also

Where this sits

Stop 2, you build the message. You choose a From address, write a subject line, and add the things the law requires to be in the message.

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.