In forcesince 1 Jun 2024 · Global

Bulk senders must support one-click unsubscribe

Gmail and Yahoo require bulk senders to implement RFC 8058 one-click unsubscribe: a List-Unsubscribe header plus List-Unsubscribe-Post, so the mail client can unsubscribe the user with a single POST and no landing page. Yahoo requires the request to be honoured within two days.

Who this applies to

Bulk senders to Gmail and Yahoo. In practice, everyone.

What to do

Verify both headers are present. A List-Unsubscribe header alone is not one-click and does not satisfy the requirement.
Process within two days, and make sure your ESP and any downstream systems both receive the suppression.
Keep the in-body unsubscribe link as well. One-click supplements it, it does not replace it.

What happens if you do not

Enforced through filtering. It is also one of the checks Validity's platform now runs, which tells you how mechanical this has become.

Sources

RFC 8058, Signalling One-Click Functionality for List Email Headers
Published 1 Jan 2017Read it
Yahoo Sender Best Practices
Published 1 Feb 2024Read it

Gmail enforces a 0.30 percent spam rate on bulk sendersIn force

History of this page

2 May 2026Added.