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Audit

Aimly Audit checks whether a mailbox is set up to reliably land in the inbox rather than spam. It looks at domain blocklists, authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), inbox placement, hard bounces, recipient engagement, and sending activity, then gives you an overall score with specific issues to fix.

Running a new audit​

Click Run a new audit to open the audit dialog. You can either run the optional full audit with mailbox credentials, or start with a manual authentication check.

New mailbox​

Audit a mailbox that isn't already connected as a mailbox. Enter the email address to audit, then choose one of the following paths. The connection details live behind the Full audit row — open it if you want Aimly to run the audit itself.

With credentials (app password) — provide the mailbox's app password, and Aimly handles the entire audit itself: connecting via SMTP/IMAP, sending test messages, and checking where they land. This is the most complete option since Aimly can verify authentication and inbox placement directly, without you doing anything manually.

Sign in with Microsoft (Outlook) — pick Outlook as the provider inside Full audit and sign in. Microsoft has disabled app passwords for these mailboxes, so there are no SMTP/IMAP fields at all; the signed-in account names itself and supplies the access Aimly needs.

Without credentials (manual probe) — if you'd rather not share a password, you can still get a live authentication check by sending the email yourself:

  1. Aimly gives you a destination address to send to, and a unique code to include in the subject line.
  2. Send an email from the mailbox you're auditing to that address, with the code in the subject.
  3. Aimly waits for that email to arrive — while it's checking, you'll see "Checking for your email..."
  4. Once received, Aimly reads the authentication headers on that message to verify SPF, DKIM, and DMARC without ever needing your password.

This step is optional — if you don't want to send the probe email, click Proceed without it to run the audit without a live authentication check (falling back to DNS-based checks only).

Existing mailboxes​

If the mailbox is already connected as a mailbox, pick it from the list instead of re-entering an email address. Since Aimly already has that mailbox's credentials on file, it can run a full audit automatically — no probe email or extra steps needed.

Choosing the right check​

Open Full audit when you can provide the mailbox connection details and want inbox-placement, hard-bounce, and sending-activity insights. Use the manual probe when you only need a live authentication check without sharing credentials. If you skip the manual probe, Aimly continues with DNS-based checks only.

Reading your results​

Once an audit completes, you'll see a report broken into sections — Domain Blocklist, Email Authentication, Inbox Placement, Hard Bounce, Recipient Engagement, and Sending Activity — plus a Score Breakdown with your overall score out of 100, along with concrete suggestions for anything that isn't passing. Checks Aimly couldn't run (for example, inbox placement when you skipped the probe on a new mailbox) show as Not checked or Not configured rather than a failing score.