Problems sending PN email to Gmail addresses

[#1]

You can add an alias.

Microsoft365 sharing (up to 5 users) does permit independent configuration.  That is how I am set up.

[#2]

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@Townman wrote:

@stuck 

That observation would fit with the previous observations from @PeterB1 - but NOT your observation that the SENT item did not appear in the sent items folder.

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I don't follow you, where did I say that the message I sent did not appear in my sent items folder?  It did.

What it didn't do was reach the recipient.  It just disappeared without any error or bounce message.

[#3]

In that case a misunderstanding of “just disappeared” as in there’s no evidence of it ever having existed.

[#4]

Because this is beginning to get on my wick I am going to ask the question: Google (and MS) have introduced these 'anti-spam' measures to 'protect their platforms', but Google is continually allowing the same bad actors to create new Group after new Group to distribute the same spam - they close one down, and within a day a new one springs up, spouting the same cow-dung'

Yes, you can - laboriously - report each individual email received, but there is no way (and yes I have spent quite a while looking) to report the actual group. They obviously don't mind other mail platforms getting flooded with their spam.

What the hell do you do to alert them to their users bad habits?

[#5]

After reports of non-receipt of an email we sent to a gmail.com address, I have done some investigation.

We are sending from a normal xxx@account.f9.co.uk.

As a test, I sent emails to my gmail address (rarely used). The first seemed not to appear after several minutes, but i happened to notice it was in the gmail Spam folder (with no clues why). I clicked to report as not Spam, then sent another. This has just arrived in gmail, after 60 minutes.

This delay seems rather excessive to me. I will repeat the tesing at intervals.  

Is there any way in gmail (Android) to see the headers to see where the delay was?

[#6]

I cannot answer the how, but the timestamps do not tell a clear story where delays are concerned.  All that you can see if the time stamps on the successful delivery - what is not disclosed is the multiple attempts made to delivery the email to which Gmail said ****** off! try again later ... or as observed by @PeterB1 Gmail is too busy stateside to look after dear old blight's users!

These complaints need to be sent in the direct of Gmail.

[#7]

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@jab1 wrote:

Because this is beginning to get on my wick I am going to ask the question: Google (and MS) have introduced these 'anti-spam' measures to 'protect their platforms', but Google is continually allowing the same bad actors to create new Group after new Group to distribute the same spam - they close one down, and within a day a new one springs up, spouting the same cow-dung'

Yes, you can - laboriously - report each individual email received, but there is no way (and yes I have spent quite a while looking) to report the actual group. They obviously don't mind other mail platforms getting flooded with their spam.

What the hell do you do to alert them to their users bad habits?

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Looks like enough others have complained about this latest 'Group' and their spam - I haven't seen any more crud from them for about 48 hours now - but no doubt they will resurface. Annoying, but easy enough to circumvent. 

[#8]

No carp from our GoogleGroups friends since 28/09/25, but now I'm getting four  or five spam messages a day from aliexpress, and the occasional one from temu - both Chinese companies, and both sending from China - with no opt-out provision. 

[#9]

I obviously should have waited 15 minutes - just got another GoogleGroups spam mail. A good job I always pre-filter for bull-dung.

[#10]

 @Townman 

Here we go again ?

For weeks and weeks when sending meals form my account.plus.com address to Gmail recipients has been  flawless and more more or less instantaneous, everything seems to be slowing up again.

I have'nt (so far) seen bouncebacks, error messages or failures to arrive, but long-ish delays are becoming common again.

I;ve just sent test messages to two Gmail addresses copied to myself at PN.

The emali to myself at PN arrived instantly.

The pair sent to different Gmail addresses both arrived 25 minutes late.

Anybody else been checking lately?

Any thoughts @Townman ?

[#11]

If delays are re-appearing, it's nothing to do with PN and everything to do with Google.

[#12]

Hi stuck,
Well yes maybe, but I’m not really bothered about who’s to blame. As a loyal customer, what I want is for my Plusnet email to work properly. Passing the buck, even if justified, does nothing to improve the service. - and it’s not a good look for Plusnet if no service providers except Plusnet have the problem. If PN customers can’t communicate reliably with Gmail users, that’s a problem for Plusnet as well as its customers and Plusnet should own it. By the by, it also raises obvious questions about the transition to Greenby.

[#13]

@PeterB1 

Why does an issue with Gmail’s behaviour raise issues about moving to Greenby?

Your own research suggests that delivery delays correlate with state side workloads.  Doing a Google search reveals the issue is widely reported across multiple email providers.

[#14]

@Townman 

I confess I hadn't understood the extent to which other providers are hit by this so apologies for that. To the extent that's the case, I accept my point is of less relevance to the Greenby transition.

So two questions - one about the Gmail delays and the other about life after transition.

1) If the primary cause of Gmail delays is overload of the Gmali servers at busy times of day (in the US), how do we explain the fact that emails sent from a Gmail account to the same Gmail recipient areseem not to be subject to the same delays as identical measures from a PN account?

2) When the Greenby transition is finally complete, will this PN Community Forum still allow and exchange of  customer views and invaluable superuser advice on email as well as on broadband etc? I'm not aware of any similar forum at Greenby where inevitably, as at Plusnet, we'll have little or no access to front online tech staff - so the risk is those transitioned will be left a bit high and dry.

[#15]

Hi Peter,

Good questions.

For the Gmail issue depending on sender, one suspects that there is some possible connection with the bulk senders debacle as has been seen with Microsoft.  The resolution there was a change facilitated by Microsoft, not Plusnet.

It is always a risky presumption that just because these players are big, they can do no wrong.  It would be akin to suggesting that the big bully in the school play ground never did anything wrong.

I could turn your question around and ask why do so many email service have problems with Gmail and not other big providers?

As for the future of this board after everything has gone to Greenby, I doubt it will last long.  It will not be Plusnet’s responsibility.  I envisage that it will remain for a short period to deal with early life gremlins.  Greenby appears to have minimal customer engagement - everything is AI fronted.  They have been invited to engage here, but that invitation does not appear to have been taken up,