How to troubleshoot Apple transactional email soft bounces with timeout errors and no SMTP codes?

Email marketer from MailerLite shares that a positive sender reputation is crucial. Monitor feedback loops, promptly handle complaints, and authenticate emails properly to maintain a good reputation with Apple Mail.

Email marketer from Litmus explains that Mail Privacy Protection in Apple Mail may affect open rates, but it won't directly cause soft bounces. They suggest focusing on engagement and relevance to improve overall deliverability.

Email marketer from EmailOctopus shares that consistent sending practices, maintaining clean email lists, and avoiding spam triggers can improve deliverability to Apple Mail. They recommend segmenting email lists to send more personalized content to improve engagement.

Email marketer from Sendgrid that it is key to have correct SPF, DKIM and DMARC records setup for transactional email sending.

Email marketer from Email Geeks explains that providing verbose MTA logs proving the mailbox provider isn't sending a response back can sometimes get help from the provider, but this is rare. LoriBeth suspects an internal MTA timeout due to queue backup is more likely.

Email marketer from Email on Acid that incorrect HTML/CSS code can result in your email not loading at all, or potentially soft bouncing, which is more likely the larger the codebase.

Email marketer from Reddit suggests checking reverse DNS records and ensuring they match the sending domain. This can help with Apple Mail filtering.

Email marketer from Email Geeks explains that if SMTP codes are not available, it is an ESP issue. Some platforms don’t expose this info but their deliverability team should have access. LoriBeth suggests timeouts could occur within the ESP's MTA queue to Apple if it's backed up.

Email marketer from GMass shares that transactional emails should be sent from a separate IP address than marketing emails in order to limit any damage if the IP used for marketing emails is negatively impacted.

Email marketer from Mailjet explains that Apple's Private Email Relay can sometimes cause issues with transactional emails. They recommend ensuring proper authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) and monitoring sender reputation to mitigate deliverability problems.

Email marketer from StackOverflow suggests to check your server's firewall settings as they might be blocking connections to Apple's mail servers, leading to timeouts. They also advise ensuring your server's IP isn't blacklisted.

Email marketer from SparkPost shares that analyzing email headers can provide insights into the delivery path and potential issues causing soft bounces. They recommend checking for authentication failures, spam filter hits, and routing delays.

Expert from Email Geeks asks if the specific IP addresses/MXs causing the timeouts are known, and whether the issue could be related to caching an older set of IPs, leading to either DNS timeouts or IP connection timeouts.

Expert from Email Geeks explains that if the client can't provide data about the SMTP transaction, Apple can't provide help.

Expert from Email Geeks asks if the 451 responses included a message and questions if they were actually from Apple or generated locally.

Expert from Email Geeks asks about the specific error being seen and the content of the logs. They ask if the errors are 4xx deferrals or connection timeouts. They state that further troubleshooting requires access to this information from the ESP.

Expert from Spam Resource explains the importance of analyzing bounce codes, even if they are not explicitly provided. Steve suggests investigating the server logs and working with your ESP to gather detailed information about the connection attempts and any errors encountered during delivery to Apple's servers.

Expert from Word to the Wise explains that, due to Apple's Mail Privacy Protection (MPP), standard deliverability metrics may be skewed. While MPP itself may not directly cause soft bounces with timeout errors, it makes it harder to diagnose underlying problems because open tracking is less reliable.

Documentation from Postmark explains that using a dedicated IP address for transactional emails helps build a positive sender reputation. They also stress the importance of monitoring bounce rates and promptly removing invalid email addresses.

Documentation from Apple Developer shares that users' Mail Privacy Protection can mask IP addresses, potentially leading to inaccurate geolocation data and altered email open rates. This can indirectly affect email deliverability metrics.

Documentation from RFC Editor explains that timeout errors in SMTP often indicate network connectivity issues or server overload. It suggests implementing retry mechanisms with exponential backoff to handle transient errors.

Documentation from IETF highlights that understanding SMTP Enhanced Status Codes is crucial for troubleshooting deliverability. Although you aren't receiving one it is recommended to check this to see what information can be gleaned.