This document attempts to answer some of the more frequently asked questions from non-AOL members mailing into AOL. If you are an AOL member and are having trouble with your e-mail, please check the AOL Member Postmaster FAQ. If you have a question that's not answered here, please check the Tutorial for more information.
The AOL guidelines and standards for e-mail senders are all collected here. Please read them carefully before beginning to mail to AOL. Our Tutorial should be able to answer any questions you might have while reading.
The largest piece of e-mail that an AOL member can accept from or send to the Internet is 16 megabytes. This includes the message text, headers and the attachment combined. This size cannot be configured by the Member, or adjusted by the Postmaster.
AOL will not release confidential AOL Member information. AOL's policy regarding the release of personal identifying information is very clear: We do not release personal identifying information. You can read AOL's official privacy policy here.
Confirm the spelling of the e-mail address with your recipient.
AOL e-mail addresses are NOT case sensitive so UserName@aol.com and username@aol.com will reach the same destination.
Try to send the message again temporary problems between mail servers can affect mail delivery. You may also want to contact your Internet provider to see if they are aware of any mail delivery problems with their servers communicating with AOL.
Make sure that your mail adheres to our e-mail standards, and make any changes necessary for you to be following our best practices guidelines.
Your mail may be getting delivered to the Spam Folder. Please have your recipient check to make sure that isn't happening. If it is, the recipient will need to add the sending address of the mail to their address book.
If you're complying with all our policies and your mail still isn't reaching its recipient, please try our Self Help area.
You will need to have the recipients of your mail add your address to their address books.
Since each member's spam folder is controlled by their individual mail preferences, the postmaster team can neither view nor change the settings that control what mail is going to the spam folder. Also read about the Enhanced Whitelist.
AOL members can find out more about their mail settings at KW: Mail Controls.
When e-mail sent to AOL Members is "returned to sender" by AOL's mail delivery subsystem there is information regarding the reason for the return listed in the error report.
The section of the error report labeled "Transcript of Session Follows" contains the reason why the e-mail could not be delivered to the AOL address. In that section you will see two errors listed. The line beginning with "<<<" describes the specific reason your e-mail could not be delivered. The next line contains a second error message, which is a general translation for other e-mail servers. Click here for explanations of some common error messages.
Residential customers of broadband services are assigned an IP address from a specific range maintained by the provider. These IP addresses may be either dynamic or static depending up the individual provider. Residential IP addresses should use the provider's SMTP servers and should not be connecting directly to another ISP's SMTP servers. Please see our Tutorial for more information on IP addresses.
The Help Desk goes through some basic troubleshooting procedures. (Mostly the same ones as our online troubleshooting, but with some added information on what our systems are doing.)
If the Help Desk Technician can resolve the issue, it will be escalate to the Postmaster group.
The Postmaster group will then contact the person who opened the ticket and attempt to resolve the issue.
While the Postmaster group attempts to get to every ticket within 24 hours, sometimes this is not possible due to the volume of tickets received every day. Please feel free to call the Help Desk back to ask for status on a ticket if it has been over 72 hours and you have not heard back from us.
Many ISPs view the behavior of another ISPs spam blocking procedures to be their responsibility. While this view is largely correct, some of AOL's spam filters are based on aspects of your mailing setup that can only be changed by you, or by your ISP. (These include factors like your reverse DNS or whether or not your IP address is dynamic.
While we appreciate that it must be frustrating to be bounced back and forth between two help desks, we hope that our online troubleshooting procedure will help prevent this situation.
There are several ways to determine who your postmaster is.
Try sending an e-mail to the address "postmaster@yourdomain". Every domain is required to accept e-mail at that address, although some of the larger domains or ISPs may respond with some kind of automated message telling you who to contact for more information.
Check your ISP's website. Some ISPs have this information available online.
Call your technical support and ask.
Because each ISP handles postmaster issues differently, we do not have a guaranteed method that will work for all ISPs and all domains.
In order to get spam complaints from AOL, please fill out the Feedback Loop Request form. We will need any IP addresses you are using to send mail to AOL and an e-mail address to which we can send complaints. The Feedback Loop will forward any mail coming from the IP address(es) listed which is reported as spam back to an e-mail address of your choice. The Feedback Loop should enable AOL members who perceive sent e-mail from the listed IP address(es) as spam to be removed from any mailing list they may be on. No further contact should be made with the member and the e-mail address should be removed from your list. This should lead to an improvement in complaint levels, and consequently decrease the likelihood of blocks being places against an IP or domain. The Feedback Loop also enables ISPs and Network Administrators evidence of a security hole(s) on their network that could potentially be exploited to send unsolicited e-mail.
AOL actually maintains two forms of whitelisting, one that a mailer can be added to by request (if they fit our criteria), and one to which addition is automatic. More information on our whitelisting guidelines can be found here.
Newer versions of the AOL client will not display links or embedded images within e-mails from senders unknown to the Member. This newly instituted technology will override this property for qualified bulk mailers. This full-e-mail-view is being made available to certain bulk mailers through an automated mechanism we call the "Enhanced White List". Click here for more information about the Enhanced White List.
Click here for a list of AOL's Dynamically Assigned Host Address (DAHA) Range, Internet Mail Outbound (IMO) Servers, Outbound Mail Relay (OMR) Servers, and IPT Mail Relays (IPTs).
In most cases, AOL holds the MTA that delivered the mail to our system responsible for the transmission. There are a number of reasons for this, including the difficulty of accurately identifying the "source" of an e-mail. We suggest MTAs that forward mail utilize antispam technology to prevent or reduce the situation. If you have an MTA that is dedicated to mail forwarding, you can apply to have it Whitelisted.
