How to handle unsubscribes and blocked emails

If you’ve sent a message through ChurchDesk, you can view statistics to check whether the emails were delivered, if someone unsubscribed, or if a message could not be sent due to a block.

Below you’ll find the different email statuses used in ChurchDesk:

• Delivered
• Unsubscribed from all emails
• Unsubscribed from this list
• Rejected
• Missing email address
• Email is blocked

This article explains what each status means and how to deal with them.

Delivered

If the status is "Delivered", the message was successfully handed over to the recipient's email server.

Unsubscribed

In the newsletter statistics, you can see whether a contact has unsubscribed from all emails or just from a specific mailing list. These statuses appear in orange as:

"Unsubscribed from all emails" or "Unsubscribed from this list". Here you can see how to re-subscribe a contact.

Blocked and inactive email addresses

When sending messages or newsletters from ChurchDesk, the statistics can show if any emails failed due to blocked email addresses.

This article describes the most common reasons. To see the exact reason for a block, make sure to activate the “Email Status” column in your contact list, as mentioned at the beginning.

In the message statistics, a contact with a non-active email status will be marked in red with the message “Email is blocked”. You can also check the status directly in the contact list.

Pending

This status appears when someone signed up for your newsletter via your ChurchDesk website.

The signup form includes a double opt-in, meaning the person receives a confirmation email after signing up. If they don’t confirm, the status remains “Pending” and no emails will be sent.

If the contact simply missed the confirmation email, they can just sign up again to receive a new confirmation link.

If your church has documented consent from the contact to receive emails, you can activate the email manually:

1. Search and open the contact profile.
2. Under Personal Information, click Edit.
3. Copy the email address, delete it, and click Save.
4. Click Edit again, paste the address back in, and save.

The status will now be active, and the contact will be able to receive emails again.

Please ensure that the contact has explicitly agreed to receive emails and that the original lack of confirmation was accidental.

Hard Bounce & Preblocked

These statuses indicate a permanent delivery failure, often caused by an invalid email address (e.g. typos, non-existent domains, or unreachable mail servers).

Check with the contact whether the email address is correct. If not, simply update it in the contact profile, and the status will become active again.

If the address is correct, please send it to [support@churchdesk.com](), and we’ll unlock it for you.

Too many bounces

If an email address fails to receive six emails in a row, it will be automatically blocked by the system.

Please send the address to ChurchDesk Support so we can check the bounce reason and help you reactivate the contact.

Quota exceeded

This means the recipient’s mailbox is full, and emails cannot be delivered.

You can send the blocked address to [support@churchdesk.com](), and we’ll remove the block.

If the recipient’s inbox remains full, the address will be blocked again the next time you send an email.

Spam / Spam reporter

If a contact marks your email as spam, ChurchDesk is legally required to block all further communication.

If the contact tells you it was a mistake and wants to keep receiving your messages, send their email address to [support@churchdesk.com]().

We’ll send you a form the contact must complete to give written consent for future emails.

Unsub

If the email status is “Unsub”, it means the contact clicked the unsubscribe link at the top of the email. Here you can see how to re-subscribe a contact.

Typofix

This status means the domain of the email address does not exist – typically due to a typo (e.g. @gmal.com instead of @gmail.com).

Please reach out to the contact to confirm their correct email address and update their profile accordingly.

Updated on: 28/07/2025