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My mail client is reporting an SMTP error for a message it tried to send using a GSuite mail account. I know the connection generally works because it sends 100s of emails a day.

Today I got this error message for a handful of send attempts:

SMTPDataError: 451
4.3.0 Mail server temporarily rejected message. q3sm7938966qta.74 - gsmtp

I'm trying to determine if this message was actually sent, but I am confused. You can see the client is reporting the error message above from GSuite.

If I look up this message in the GSuite email logs, it says it was sent, but not delivered to the recipient. It also says it was "Rejected".

So far it would seem the message was not successfully sent. However, if I look in the sent messages folder of the account, the message shows. There is no related bounce back message anywhere either.

So I am confused as to whether this message was actually sent. I don't want to resend it if it was already sent successfully. Can someone clarify what all of this means?

1 Answer 1

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Based on the type of the response the message has been sent but it stays in queue. The server would try deliver it later. In case there is error prevent it from delivery you are announced about that. This may happen in several cases:

  • real technical issue on receiving side

    • the server will try to deliver it until it will reach the limit and than in will inform you that it was not possible to deliver the message.
  • gray listing applied on receiving side

    • the server will try to deliver it later (usually 2+ minutes) and one of the following tries (usually not more than 5 minutes) will be successful.

With this temporary error code it make not much sense to try to resent it - the most probably it will be queued also.

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