Email Delivery Settings is a one-page Setup screen, but its consequences ripple through every send path in the org. The checklist below covers the production setup once and the sandbox-refresh process for every environment after that.
- Navigate to Email Delivery Settings
Setup > Email > Deliverability. The page consolidates Access Level, Bounce Management, Compliance BCC, and Test Deliverability into one screen.
- Set Access Level
For production, set All Email. For sandboxes, decide between System Email Only (default, safer) and All Email (needed for integration testing). Document the choice in your sandbox runbook.
- Enable Bounce Management
Check Activate bounce management. Optionally check Show bounce alert and Return bounced email to sender to surface the bounce to the originating user. Save.
- Configure Compliance BCC
If your legal team requires it, enable Compliance BCC and enter the destination address. Confirm the inbox can handle the volume; for a 1000-user org, expect tens of thousands of mails per day.
- Add verified org-wide addresses
Setup > Email > Organization-Wide Addresses. Add the shared addresses (billing@, support@, hello@) and click Verify. The address owner must click the link in the verification email.
- Run Test Deliverability
Click Test Deliverability on the same page. Enter a known external address you control. Confirm receipt of all test mails from every region. Missing mails indicate IP-level blocking on the receiver side.
- Build a sandbox-refresh checklist
Document the post-refresh steps that re-enable email in non-production environments. Without this, every sandbox refresh produces a wave of "email is broken" tickets that all trace back to this page.
Every outbound channel works. Default for production.
Only system-generated mail (password resets, license warnings) sends. Default for sandboxes.
All outbound email disabled. Used during emergency cutoffs or in highly restricted compliance scenarios.
Tracks bounces back to the originating Contact, Lead, or User record. Updates EmailBouncedDate and EmailBouncedReason.
BCC every outbound email to a designated address. Cannot be overridden by users; legal-only feature.
- Sandbox refresh resets Access Level to System Email Only. Email-dependent integration tests fail silently after refresh unless you toggle to All Email.
- Setting Access Level to No Access raises exceptions on Apex Messaging.sendEmail() calls. Code that does not handle the exception will hit a uncatchable email exception in batch processes.
- Compliance BCC applies to every outbound send including system mail. The receiving inbox needs the capacity for that volume; underspec the inbox and mail backs up.
- Test Deliverability sends mail from multiple Salesforce regions. A receiver that blocks one region but accepts another will produce partial test results that look like a flaky test, not a routing problem.
- Verified Organization-Wide Addresses must be re-verified annually in some compliance contexts. Salesforce does not automatically re-verify; track verification dates externally.