Do not contact

The do-not-contact list is a promise your outreach keeps: an address on it gets no outreach email from any sequence, in any project of your organization, until the entry is lifted. You find it under Settings, then "Do not contact". The page reads: "Addresses and domains that every outreach send in this organization refuses. Replies inside an existing thread are still allowed, so you can always answer someone who wrote to you."

You rarely open this page to add something. Entries land on it from the places where the decision is made: a bounce, a reply you triage, a contact row. You open it to see what is on the list and why, and to lift an entry that should not be there.

How an entry gets there

Three things add an entry, and each is named in the "Reason" column.

• Hard bounce. A sent email came back with a notice that the address itself is bad. The address is added automatically, and every contact in your organization holding it is marked as failed verification at the same time. The bounce notice's subject is kept as the entry's note. A temporary delivery problem (what mail providers call a soft bounce) never adds an entry.
• Asked not to be contacted. You triaged a reply as "Do not contact", in the Inbox details rail or on the Autopilot deck. The address that replied is added, and so is the address you pitched when the two differ, so a colleague who answered for the contact and the contact both stay off your list. One of your own mailboxes is never added, even when a forward lands in the thread.
• Added by hand. You pressed "Do not contact" on a contact row in a page's detail panel. This is for the cases nothing automatic can see: someone said no on the phone, on LinkedIn, or from an address no reply was matched to.

A "Do not contact" triage also records the loss on the page, the same as "Lost". On top of that, it makes a promise about the person.

What it blocks

Every send that starts contact checks the list first, by exact address and by domain. The list belongs to the whole organization, so an address added from one project is refused in every project.

• Launching a draft. When you launch a draft to an address on the list, the launch is refused with a message that names the entry, for example: "<address> is on the do-not-contact list: they asked not to be contacted. Revoke the entry in Settings → Do not contact if that is wrong." Editing the emails does not clear it: lift the entry, or send the draft to someone else. See Reviewing and launching.
• A live sequence. When the next email of a launched sequence is due to an address that has since been added, the email is not sent. That step shows as failed, the sequence stops and its remaining emails are skipped. A stopped sequence cannot be resumed. "Send the next email now" is refused with the same message.
• People copied on a reply. When you answer in the Inbox, anyone on the Cc line who is on the list is dropped before the send. The toast names them: "Not copied: <addresses>" with "On the do-not-contact list. The reply went to everyone else."

What it does not block: answering the person who wrote to you, inside the existing thread, so you can always acknowledge a request to stop.

If the list cannot be read when you launch a draft, send the next email now or copy people on a reply, nothing goes out: "Could not check the do-not-contact list, so nothing was sent. Try again in a moment." A scheduled email that meets an unreadable list is held and tried again later. An unreadable list is never treated as an empty one.

What you see

The page is one card and one table.

The card's heading counts the live entries: "Nothing is suppressed", "1 live entry" or "N live entries". When the list has no entries yet it explains: "Entries land here when a send hard-bounces, when a reply is triaged as do not contact, or when someone is added by hand from a contact row."

Live entries are listed first. Revoked rows stay on the list, grayed, with no "Revoke" button. Nothing is ever deleted here: the record of who was on the list, and when it was lifted, is the point. The same address can be added again later, and both entries show.

If the list could not be read, the card reads "Suppression status unavailable" with "The list could not be read. Suppression rules have not changed." and a "Retry loading" button.

How to add an address by hand

1. Open the page in Opportunities and open its detail panel. See The detail panel.
2. On the panel's "Outreach" tab, find the person under "Contacts". Each contact with an email address has a "Do not contact" button beside "Record attempt" (hover: "Never contact this address again. It applies to every opportunity in your organization.").
3. Press it and read the confirmation: "Add <email> to the do-not-contact list? Every outreach send in this organization will refuse this address, on every opportunity, until the entry is revoked in Settings → Do not contact."
4. Confirm. The toast reads "Added to the do-not-contact list" with "Every outreach send now refuses this address, across the whole organization." The entry is listed with the reason "Added by hand".

Adding an address does not cancel a live sequence to it at once. Its next email is refused and the sequence stops there, as described above, so you see what happened instead of a silent cancel.

To add an address from a reply instead, triage it as "Do not contact" in the Inbox details rail or on the deck. Both ask first, in the same words, and the question names what is added: "the address that replied (and the address we pitched, when they differ)". See The inbox and The deck.

How to lift an entry

1. Open Settings, then "Do not contact".
2. Find the row and press "Revoke".
3. Read the dialog, "Revoke the entry for <value>?". Its first sentence depends on the reason:
   • Hard bounce: "Outreach will be able to send to this address again, and contacts holding it go back to unverified so they can be checked rather than treated as dead."
   • Asked not to be contacted: "Outreach will be able to send to this address again. This person asked not to be contacted, so lift it only if they have since said otherwise."
   • Added by hand: "Outreach will be able to send to this address again."
4. Every dialog ends: "The entry stays on this list, marked revoked, so the record of it is kept." Press "Revoke". The toast reads "<value> removed from the do-not-contact list", and the row's status changes to "Revoked" with today's date.

Lifting an entry does not restart a stopped sequence. If you still want to pitch the person, start a new draft. A bounced address goes back to unverified when its entry is lifted, so verify it before you send; see Contacts and verification.

Good to know

• An entry is lifted on this page, or by the deck's Undo described below. Every member of your organization can open the page and lift an entry; there is no separate role for the list.
• On the Autopilot deck, Undo takes back your last decision for ten minutes. Undoing a "Do not contact" lifts exactly the entries that decision added. The Inbox offers no undo for a triage; lift the entry on this page instead.
• An entry made from a reply is keyed to the address that wrote, not only to the contact you pitched. If no usable address is stored for the reply or its contact, the triage is refused: "Nothing was recorded. No address is stored for this reply or its contact. Add the address on the contact row, then suppress it there."
• Spot and an agent connected over MCP can read the list (its entries, their reasons and when one was lifted), and the "Mailbox health" insight counts its live entries by reason. Your agent can add a contact to the list, and it can ask to lift an entry, which always waits for you as a card: lifting one confirms that they may be written to again. A token limited to named projects does not read the list, since it belongs to the whole account. See Agent scopes and limits.