Email Delivery Settings
Email Delivery Settings is the Salesforce Setup page that controls org-wide outbound email behavior, including the Access Level (No Access, System Email Only, All Email), Bounce Management, deliverability address verification, and the Compliance BCC Email feature.
Definition
Email Delivery Settings is the Salesforce Setup page that controls org-wide outbound email behavior, including the Access Level (No Access, System Email Only, All Email), Bounce Management, deliverability address verification, and the Compliance BCC Email feature. The page is the master switch for whether Salesforce will send mail at all, and what kind of mail. Sandbox orgs default to System Email Only; production orgs default to All Email. Misconfiguration here is the most common reason a sandbox refresh "loses email" overnight.
The settings affect every email send across the org: Apex Messaging.SingleEmailMessage and MassEmailMessage calls, Workflow Email Alerts, Flow Send Email actions, List Email and Quick Send, Email-to-Case auto-responses, and any AppExchange package that sends mail. The Access Level toggle is org-wide, with no per-user, per-profile, or per-object override. Once set, all outbound email channels obey it.
What the Email Delivery Settings page actually controls
The three Access Levels
Access Level has three values. No Access disables all outbound email; Apex sends fail with an exception, Workflow Email Alerts silently skip. System Email Only allows password resets, user verification, license expiration warnings, and similar system-generated mail, but blocks user-initiated and automation-initiated email. All Email allows every send path. Sandbox orgs default to System Email Only after every refresh, which is the source of the classic "email worked yesterday, gone today" complaint after a sandbox refresh.
Why sandboxes default to System Email Only
Sandbox refreshes pull production data into a non-production environment. Without the deliverability default, a sandbox would start sending real customer-facing email from production triggers and Flows the moment data lands. The System Email Only default protects against this. Plan for the toggle on every refresh: developers and QA need All Email to test send paths, but the default exists for a good reason. Document the rollback process so the right level is set after every refresh.
Bounce Management
Bounce Management is the toggle that controls whether the platform tracks bounced sends back to the originating object. With it on, a bounce on an email sent to a Contact updates the EmailBouncedDate and EmailBouncedReason fields on the Contact. Without it, the bounce is invisible at the record level. Most orgs leave this on, but customer support sees flags appearing on Contacts only after Bounce Management is enabled, so understand its effect before changing the setting.
Compliance BCC Email
The Compliance BCC Email setting routes a copy of every outbound email to a designated address, regardless of the user's preference. The feature is one-way: users cannot turn it off for themselves. Legal and compliance teams use this for regulatory archives. Note that the BCC happens at send time, not at storage time, so the receiving address must be ready to handle the volume of every outbound send across the org.
Verified Organization-Wide Addresses
On the same page, the Verified Organization-Wide Addresses section lists email addresses that users can send mail from beyond their personal Salesforce address. After adding an address (like billing@yourdomain.com), the platform sends a verification email; the recipient must click the link to activate the address. Once verified, users with assigned profiles can choose the address as the From in the email composer.
Per-user email signature versus org-wide footer
Email Delivery Settings does not control signatures (those are per-user) but it does relate to org-wide email footers and disclaimers. The Email Footers setting nearby in Setup configures legal disclaimers appended to outbound mail. Keep these two settings in sync: an org with strict deliverability rules typically also has a strict footer requirement, and misalignment causes audit findings.
Test Deliverability and the verification email
The page includes a Test Deliverability button that sends a verification email from every sending region Salesforce uses. Run this after any change to spam filters, mail routing, or DNS records. The test surfaces which sending IPs reach the destination mailbox; missing test emails indicate the receiving server is blocking that IP range, which is a serious deliverability issue worth raising with the receiving organization or your mail provider.
Configure Email Delivery Settings for production and sandbox
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.
About the Author
Dipojjal Chakrabarti is a B2C Solution Architect with 29 Salesforce certifications and over 13 years in the Salesforce ecosystem. He runs salesforcedictionary.com to help admins, developers, architects, and cert/interview candidates sharpen their fundamentals. More about Dipojjal.
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