mailX is now inside ChatGPT: ask it why your emails go to spam
Hey makers π
"Why are my emails going to spam?" is a question people now ask ChatGPT instead of Google. Until now, the answer was a generic checklist, because ChatGPT can't read your DNS.
This week, mailX went live inside ChatGPT, as a plugin approved by OpenAI. Ask the question with your domain, and ChatGPT runs a live check through mailX:
SPF, DKIM, DMARC and BIMI, with the exact record found
Your DKIM selector, detected for you (we test 25 common ones)
Blacklists: Spamhaus, Barracuda, SpamCop and more
The fixes, in priority order
SPF and DMARC records ready to paste
Read-only: it never sends an email, never touches your DNS and never asks for a password. No account. Free.
π Add mailX to ChatGPT
π₯ 2-minute demo, run on our own domain:
Two things I'd love your input on:
Run it on your own domain and tell me what it found. I'm curious which issue comes up most.
What's the next check you'd want your AI assistant to run on your email setup? That's what we build next.
Side note for builders: OpenAI approved the plugin about 6 hours after we submitted it. If you're shipping a ChatGPT plugin or an MCP server, ask me anything about the review. Happy to share what we changed before submitting.
Thami
Replies
geting the plugin approved so quickly is interesting too. Iβm curious what changes you made during the review process that helped it pass.
@bradely_charlesboisΒ Thanks Bradely. Four changes before we hit submit:
1. We removed every tool that needed a password. Our SMTP and IMAP tests are useful, but a chat tool asking for credentials is a red flag, for the reviewer and for the user.
2. Every tool is read-only, and declared as such.
3. One tool for the question people actually ask. Nobody types "run spf_check". They ask "why are my emails going to spam?", so audit_domain runs the full audit in one call.
4. We wrote the review test prompts from real user questions, then recorded the demo with the exact same prompts.
And we did the admin side before submitting, not during: business verification, domain verification, privacy and support pages.
The read-only approach is a good choice. Iβd feel more comfortable running a check when it doesnβt need my password or access to change DNS records
@rahul_manjhi1Β The ability to generate records ready to paste could save a lot of time. Iβd still want clear guidance on where to add them without breaking an existing setup
@rahul_manjhi1Β @joannacΒ Fair point Joanna. Each record comes with its exact name and type: a TXT on the root domain for SPF, a TXT on the _dmarc subdomain for DMARC. And DMARC starts at p=none, which only monitors and changes nothing to delivery.
The one trap: a domain can only have one SPF record. If you already have one, don't add a second. Ask ChatGPT to check your current SPF first, then merge the new include into the existing record.
@rahul_manjhi1Β Thanks Rahul, that was rule number one for us. An email tool inside a chat should never ask for your password or get write access to your DNS. mailX only reads public DNS records and blocklists, so there's nothing to hand over.
Could the DKIM check distinguish no match among the 25 selectors from DKIM being missing? Letting someone enter their selector would give them a next step without suggesting they change a working setup.
@al_kubΒ Good question, and yes, it does. If none of the common selectors matches, mailX returns "selector not found", not "DKIM missing", and says it explicitly: DKIM may still be set up under a custom selector. Then it tells you where to find yours: the s= value in the DKIM-Signature header of an email you sent, or your provider's DKIM settings.
You can pass it directly: "Check DKIM for example.com with selector s1024". Exactly so nobody "fixes" a setup that already works.
Nice one thami, this is way more useful than the usual checklist chatgpt gives.
@karimbenkeroumΒ Thanks Kareem π That was the whole idea: ChatGPT already gets the question, it just couldn't look.
Awesome work on this ππ». Being able to just grab the ready-to-paste SPF/DMARC without second-guessing syntax is great.
For future checks definitely SPF lookup limits. So many setups fail because people keep appending include: mechanisms until they blow past the 10-lookup cap.
@naimzΒ Great call Naim. Past 10 DNS lookups, SPF returns a permerror, and many receivers treat that like a fail even when every include looks right. It's on the list for the next checks.
Nice one @thamibenjelloun What if all the checks are good but emails still go to spam? Can mailX help figure out what to try next?
@thamibenjellounΒ You are the best