Troubleshooting Emails from Files.com

Use this guide when Files.com emails do not arrive, arrive late, or bounce. It applies to product-generated emails (welcome emails, password recovery, 2FA codes, admin alerts, share link and inbox emails) that are described in Emails from Files.com.

Fast Triage

Start by locking down the facts. This avoids guessing and shortens every escalation.

• Identify the email type and the target recipient address.
• Confirm whether your site uses the Files.com default sender or Custom SMTP.
• Search the Outbound Emails logs for the recipient address and time window.
• Check the recipient mailbox's spam, quarantine, and mail rules.
• If your organization uses an email security gateway, check its message trace for an accept, reject, or quarantine action.

Use Outbound Email Logs First

Outbound Email logs separate "the platform did not send" from "the platform sent and the mail system rejected or filtered."

If There Is No Log Entry

No log entry means Files.com did not attempt delivery.

Common causes:

• The event did not occur. The email triggers only from the related action.
• The email type is disabled by configuration. Review your Outbound Email Settings.
• The email does not apply to the user's configuration. Welcome emails require Email Signup authentication.

When The Log Shows Success

A successful send in Files.com means Files.com handed the message to the configured mail delivery path.

• If you use the Files.com default sender, the next hop is the recipient's mail system.
• If you use Custom SMTP, the next hop is your SMTP provider. Delivery depends on that provider's acceptance and onward routing.

At this point, focus on recipient-side spam/quarantine and domain-level filtering.

If The Log Shows Failure or Bounce

A failure in the logs includes enough detail to categorize the problem and decide what to do next. Start with bounce type.

Bounce Handling

Files.com treats bounces differently because bounce behavior affects sender reputation and long-term deliverability.

Soft Bounce

A soft bounce is a temporary delivery failure reported by the recipient's mail system. Files.com retries delivery automatically.

Common causes:

• Mailbox full
• Temporary policy block
• Temporary rate limiting
• Temporary destination outage

Soft bounces resolve only when the recipient's mail system accepts mail again.

Hard Bounce

A hard bounce is a permanent delivery failure. Files.com stops sending to that address after a hard bounce.

Common causes:

• Nonexistent mailbox
• Disabled mailbox
• Typo in the address
• Permanent policy rejection for the sender or domain

Resolution path:

1. Correct the recipient address.
2. Trigger the email again from the originating feature.
3. If the address is valid and the recipient's mail system is still rejecting, remove the block in the recipient's environment.

Common Root Causes in Customer Email Environments

Most missing-email reports trace back to filtering, rewriting, or policy enforcement between Files.com and the final mailbox.

Spam, Quarantine, and Mail Rules

Check these locations in this order:

1. Quarantine (security tools quarantine before the mailbox receives mail)
2. Spam folder
3. Inbox rules and client-side filters

If a security tool quarantines the message, release it and add an allow rule for the Files.com sender identity used by your site.

Allowlisting Strategy

If you need allowlisting guidance, use Files.com Email Deliverability.

Files.com sends application mail via Amazon SES. IP allowlisting expands to a very large address range and is hard to maintain. Prefer allowlisting on the sender identity and authentication results (SPF, DKIM, DMARC).

DKIM/DMARC Breakage from Message Rewriting

Many email security products modify messages in transit. Common modifications:

• Rewrite the Subject
• Add tags or banners into the message body
• Replace URLs
• Add or remove headers

These changes invalidate DKIM signatures. If the recipient enforces DMARC alignment and your gateway breaks DKIM, the recipient rejects or quarantines the message.

Fix this by configuring your email security tooling to preserve original content and headers for Files.com mail, or by disabling rewriting for the Files.com sender identity used by your site.

Custom SMTP Misconfiguration

When Custom SMTP is enabled, Files.com connects to your SMTP server and submits mail using the credentials and hostname you configured.

Common failure modes:

• SMTP authentication failure (invalid username/password, blocked auth method)
• Network blocks between Files.com and your SMTP host
• Provider policy rejects the message at submission time

Validate the SMTP settings in Custom SMTP and confirm your mail provider accepts connections from Files.com.

Welcome Emails Not Arriving

Welcome emails are tied to both site configuration and authentication method.

Confirm the User's Authentication Method

Users receive a set-password welcome email only when the user uses Email Signup authentication. See Authentication Methods.

Confirm the Recipient Address and Resend

1. Verify the user's email address is correct in the user record.
2. Use Resend welcome email to trigger a new message.
3. Check Outbound Emails logs for the resend attempt.

If the message was sent successfully, the issue is mailbox filtering or a bounce.

Site Administrator Alert Emails Not Arriving

Site administrator alerts are operational signals. They cover failures in external integrations and system workflows. They are described in Emails from Files.com.

Confirm the Admin Has Alert Emails Enabled

Each administrator controls their own Site alert emails preference in My account. If no site administrator has alert emails enabled, Files.com sends alerts to all administrators as a fallback.

Expect Rate Limiting on Noisy Sites

Files.com reduces alert email frequency when a site generates a high volume of repeated errors. Use the relevant logs in the web app for the source system as the primary signal. Treat alert emails as an escalation channel, not as monitoring.

What to Gather Before Contacting Support

Bring these details. They speed up diagnosis and remove back-and-forth.

• Email type that failed
• Recipient email address
• Timestamp and timezone for a failed or missing email
• Outbound Emails log entry details for that attempt
• The full bounce message content, including SMTP status codes, if available