The newsletter did not arrive

Start by assuming it was delivered, because it usually was. Work through these in order and stop at the first one that explains it.

1. Search, do not browse

In Gmail, type the exact subject into the search box rather than looking through tabs:

subject:"your subject here"

Search covers Primary, Promotions, Social, Updates and Spam. Clicking through tabs does not.

2. Promotions is not a failure

A newsletter carries a List-Unsubscribe header, which is what puts the Unsubscribe control at the top of a Gmail message. That header also tells Gmail the message is bulk, and bulk mail belongs in Promotions. That is where almost every newsletter in the world lives.

Removing the header to chase the Primary tab is a bad trade, and it does not work anyway. Gateways judge content, links, sender reputation and category, not one header. All you would lose is the Unsubscribe button, and a reader who wants out then presses Report spam instead, on the same domain that sends your password resets.

What does move mail to Primary is content. A message that makes one point in prose reads as a letter. A message that is a list of product links reads as a catalogue. The personalised horoscope digest lands in Primary for the same reason: it is written for one person.

3. Were you actually sent it?

The send report says how many confirmed subscribers received it and how many unconfirmed ones were skipped. Only confirmed subscribers are emailed.

Re-subscribing sets an address back to unconfirmed and issues a new token, which also kills the link in any older confirmation email. If you unsubscribed to test the link and then subscribed again without confirming, you were skipped, and the send was fine.

4. What your sending provider says

In Resend, open Logs. A status of delivered means the receiving server said "250 OK, it is mine now" and nothing more. What happens next is invisible to every sender on earth: inbox, Promotions, spam, quarantine or silently discarded all look identical from the outside. Nobody can see inbox placement, and any tool claiming to is guessing.

5. Work and government addresses

Corporate and government mail gateways routinely hold bulk mail in quarantine while letting transactional mail through, which is why a confirmation email arrives at such an address and a newsletter does not. That is their policy and no change here affects it. Ask their IT to allow your domain, or test with an ordinary consumer mailbox instead.

Before you send the next one

Press Send me a test first. It uses the same code as the real broadcast, so what arrives is exactly what subscribers get.