Domain verification statuses
What Pending, Verified and Failed mean on a sending domain, plus the record-level Temporary failure state.
Your sending domain shows one of three statuses, Pending, Verified or Failed, as a badge on its page and in your domains list. There’s also Temporary failure, but you’ll only ever see it on an individual DNS record row, never on the domain itself.
Pending
The domain hasn’t finished verifying yet. Every domain starts here, and it covers two situations:
- Still setting up. Right after you add a domain, EmailFig prepares it in the background, usually within seconds.
- Waiting on DNS. At least one required record hasn’t verified yet: it isn’t published, it’s still spreading, or what’s published doesn’t match. EmailFig checks a newly added domain about once a minute for the first 30 minutes, then roughly hourly, on top of the Re-check DNS button.
Sitting in Pending for a while is normal, since DNS changes can take up to 48 hours to spread. If it’s been far longer, Publish DNS records at your registrar covers the most common cause (a doubled domain suffix in a record’s host field).
If a domain stays Pending with no progress for around a month, EmailFig stops checking it, moves it to Failed, and emails you to say you’ll need to remove and re-add it.
Verified
All four required DNS records (DKIM, MAIL FROM MX, MAIL FROM SPF and DMARC) have verified. See The DNS records we generate.
Verified is about your DNS. Your account also finishes its own one-time sending setup, which normally happens automatically around signup. If a domain shows Verified but the page says your account is still being set up for sending, that should clear on its own shortly; email support@emailfig.com if it doesn’t.
A verified domain can drop back to Pending, or forward to Failed, later if its DNS changes. See My domain went back to pending.
Failed
DKIM has permanently failed, and Amazon SES stops trying after a hard failure. A failed domain can’t be brought back by fixing your DNS and re-checking, which is why the Re-check DNS button is hidden on it. To send from this domain, remove it and add it again, which generates a fresh DKIM key and records.
A domain can also land in Failed if EmailFig’s own setup step didn’t complete, showing Failed with no DNS records at all. The fix is the same: remove it and add it again.
Most often the cause is that the published DKIM record didn’t match what EmailFig generated: an incomplete paste, a value mangled by a DNS tool, or the record being removed after it first verified. Use the copy button next to the DKIM value rather than retyping it, and check The DNS records we generate.
Temporary failure (record-level only)
This shows on an individual DNS record row, never as the domain’s status. Amazon SES hit a brief glitch checking that specific record, not that the record is wrong. The domain still shows Pending overall and gets the same automatic re-checks, so there’s nothing to do but wait.