Email Spam Checker
Paste a message as your inbox received it, or drop a .eml file. You get a readiness grade, the fixes that matter most, and the verdicts other spam filters already wrote into its headers. Everything runs in your browser.
How to check an email for spam
Spam filters judge a message on who sent it, how it was built and what the receiving server learned along the way. The quickest test is the message itself, exactly as it arrived:
- Send the email to an inbox you control, ideally the provider your readers use.
- Open the raw source. Gmail: open the message, then ⋮ → Show original. Outlook: ⋯ → View → View message source. Apple Mail: View → Message → Raw Source.
- Paste it above, or save it as a .eml file and drop it in. Fix the failures first, then the warnings.
The grade weighs authentication most, as the app's mail test does: an email that fails SPF, DKIM or DMARC is in trouble whatever its content says. Use the links next to each fix to check the sending domain's records.
Reading a SpamAssassin score
Servers that run SpamAssassin add an X-Spam-Status header,
for example
Yes, score=7.1 required=5.0
tests=HTML_IMAGE_ONLY_20,MIME_HTML_ONLY. score is the total of every rule that matched,
required is that server's spam threshold (5 unless
the administrator changed it, per
Apache SpamAssassin), and
tests names the rules. A score at or over the threshold is
marked as spam.
The checker reads this header from your paste and lists the rules that
fired. Rule names describe the problem: MIME_HTML_ONLY means
the message has no plain-text part, HTML_IMAGE_ONLY_20 means
it is mostly images with little text.
Microsoft SCL and BCL
Microsoft 365 writes its verdict into
X-Forefront-Antispam-Report. Read SFV (SPM means
marked as spam) and CAT (the policy that acted, such as SPM,
HSPM or BULK). The spam confidence level, SCL, is still
stamped but
no longer decides the verdict in Microsoft 365, so the checker shows it without a threshold. BCL in
X-Microsoft-Antispam rates bulk mail; the default policy
junks bulk at 7 or higher
(Microsoft Learn).
What this spam test can't see
The check runs in your browser, so it reads what is in the message: the receiving server's authentication results, the headers and the MIME structure. It does not look up blocklists or predict inbox placement. For the sending IP and domain, run the blacklist check; for the domain's SPF, DKIM, DMARC and more in one pass, the domain health check; to trace every delivery hop, the email header analyzer. Why good mail still lands in junk is covered in why emails go to spam.
Frequently asked questions
How do I check if my email will go to spam?
Send the email to an inbox you control, open its raw source (Gmail: Show original; Outlook: View message source) and paste it here. The checker grades authentication, headers and content, lists what to fix first, and shows any verdict a spam filter already wrote into the headers.
What is a good spam score?
Here, A or A+ means authentication passes and the message is built the way filters expect. For SpamAssassin, lower is better: a score under the required= value in X-Spam-Status is not spam on that server.
Is my email sent anywhere?
No. The check runs in your browser and nothing from the message leaves the page. The optional newsletter checkbox sends only the address you type, and only when ticked.
Do spam trigger words matter?
Much less than they used to. Modern filters weigh authentication, sender reputation and how the message is built far above single words, so a spam word checker rarely explains a junk folder. Fix failing SPF, DKIM or DMARC first.
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