How to warm up your email account manually to avoid spam

Warming up an email account means earning the trust of providers like Gmail, Outlook or iCloud. You start by sending a few emails from a new account with no reputation, and increase the volume little by little every day.

What you get

• Avoid blacklists and being marked as spam.
• Improve your delivery and open rates.
• Prepare the account to send high volume by building reputation gradually.

Step 1: Write to people you know

Gather addresses of people you know will reply: friends, family, partners. You don't need to send marketing content: it can be a greeting, a personal message or something you find interesting.

Ask them to reply to your email and, if there is a link, to click it. That way providers see that you are a real person having real conversations.

Step 2: Subscribe to newsletters

An email account doesn't only send: it also receives. Subscribe to about 10 newsletters to receive emails regularly and show that the account is alive.

Step 3: Send gradually

If you have gathered 10,000 contacts with Mailerfind, don't send to them all at once: providers would start to see you as a bot or a spammer.

Increase the volume every 2 days until you reach 25 emails a day:

At this pace you reach the inbox and not spam.

How long it should last

• Minimum: one week.
• If you are going to send to many people every day: between 4 and 6 weeks.

The more time you spend building reputation, the more providers will trust you.

Automate the warm-up

There are also tools that do it for you, such as Instantly or Smartlead. Both integrate with Mailerfind.

Watch how people respond

While you warm up the account, pay attention to how recipients react. If they interact little, providers may start making things harder for you. Then check whether your email is really interesting for whoever receives it and make small adjustments or tests: if the first recipients don't like it, the rest probably won't either.

Updated on: 13/10/2026