Message statuses
Understand message and recipient outcomes in Activity.
A message can have several recipients with different outcomes. Open its details and inspect the address you are investigating.
Before delivery
| Status | Meaning | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Queued | The message is waiting for processing. | Check again for progress. |
| Processing | A worker has picked up the message. | Follow the timeline for the next result. |
| Sent | SendMero handed the message to the delivery engine. | Wait for a recipient-level delivery result; this isn't Delivered. |
| Retrying | A processing or handoff attempt failed and is being retried. | Review the timeline and wait for the next attempt. |
| Rejected | SendMero did not send the message. | Read the reason and correct the sending configuration or request before trying again. |
| Unknown | The handoff result could not be confirmed. | Investigate before resending; the message may already be in delivery. |
An API success response or an SMTP 250 reply confirms acceptance for processing. It does not establish that a recipient has received the email.
Delivery outcomes
| Status | Meaning | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Delivered | The recipient's mail server accepted the email. | Check the recipient's inbox if needed. |
| Deferred | A temporary delivery problem delayed the email. | Read the SMTP response; delivery will be retried. |
| Bounced | The recipient's delivery attempt ended in failure. | Review the bounce type and response before sending to that address again. |
| Expired | Delivery attempts continued failing until the delivery window ended. | Resolve the underlying issue before starting another send. |
| Complained | A recipient marked the email as spam, as reported to SendMero. | Review why the email was unwanted and avoid further unwanted sends. |
| Suppressed | SendMero did not send to this recipient because its address is on your suppression list (for example after a hard bounce or a spam complaint). The reason is shown in the message timeline. | Nothing was sent to it. Check why the address is suppressed before removing it from the list. |
| Mixed results | Recipients of the same message ended with different outcomes, for example some were sent and some suppressed. | Inspect every affected recipient; don't resend to all recipients together. |
Delivered does not confirm that a message reached the inbox or was read. See Delivered but not received.
Understand bounce details
| Type | Typical meaning |
|---|---|
| Hard | An address or domain doesn't exist, or another permanent address problem occurred. |
| Soft | A delivery condition such as a full mailbox caused failure. A final soft bounce is different from a Deferred event still being retried. |
| Block | A receiving server refused the email for spam or policy reasons. |
| Admin | Delivery was stopped by SendMero. |
Use the recorded SMTP response and timeline to diagnose the specific failure. The bounce type alone doesn't explain every case.
Read the timeline
Open Activity, find the email, then click View message details. Timeline shows dispatch steps and recipient events, with timestamps and available SMTP responses, attempt numbers or reasons.
A temporary failure can be followed by Delivered. For multi-recipient messages, follow events for the relevant address. The Status filter can match an individual recipient even when the overall message shows a different status; Failed groups bounced, rejected and expired results.
Statuses and webhook events
Activity includes internal sending progress such as Queued, Processing and Sent. Webhooks notify your server of subscribed events such as delivered, deferred, bounced, expired, complained, rejected and suppressed. They are not a one-to-one copy of every Activity status.
A failed webhook call means your server didn't acknowledge the notification; it doesn't change the email's delivery result. See the event reference and webhook troubleshooting.
- Investigate Unknown or a timeout before submitting another send.
- Use per-recipient outcomes to avoid resending to people who already received the email.
- Keep the message ID, recipient and SMTP response when escalating an issue.