What is the best way to manage a large volume of DMARC reports?

It is highly recommended to use a DMARC management solution or service. These tools automatically parse the raw XML reports, aggregate the data, and present it in a user-friendly format via dashboards or summarized reports. Attempting to manually analyze the volume of XML reports is impractical and time-consuming.

What is the difference between aggregate and forensic DMARC reports?

DMARC aggregate reports (RUA) provide an overview of all email traffic, including passes and failures, and are widely supported. Forensic reports (RUF) provide detailed copies of individual failed emails but are rarely sent by Mailbox Providers due to privacy concerns and high volume.

What valuable insights can I gain from DMARC reports?

DMARC reports help identify all legitimate sources sending email on your behalf, detect unauthorized use of your domain (spoofing), and troubleshoot authentication issues (SPF, DKIM, DMARC alignment). They provide crucial data for enhancing email security and improving deliverability.

How many DMARC report emails should I expect to receive daily and how should I manage them? - Technical - Email deliverability - Knowledge base

Q: How many DMARC report emails should I expect to receive daily?

The number of DMARC reports depends on your email sending volume and the number of Mailbox Providers (MBPs) that receive your emails. Each participating MBP typically sends one aggregate report daily. If you send emails to recipients across many different MBPs, you could receive hundreds or even thousands of reports per day, especially for high-volume senders.

Setting up DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) is a critical step in securing your email domain and improving deliverability. It allows you to receive reports on email activity claiming to be from your domain, whether legitimate or fraudulent. When you first enable DMARC, a common surprise for many is the sheer volume of DMARC report emails that start landing in their inbox.

It can be alarming to suddenly receive hundreds or even thousands of these XML-formatted reports daily. This influx of data is normal, but it underscores the importance of having a robust strategy for managing them. These reports contain invaluable insights into how various Mailbox Providers (MBPs) are handling emails sent from your domain, identifying both authentic and unauthorized sending sources.

Understanding why you receive so many reports and how to effectively process them is key to leveraging DMARC for your email security and deliverability goals. Without proper management, the reports can quickly become overwhelming, turning a vital security measure into a logistical headache.

Suped DMARC monitoring

Free forever, no credit card required

Learn more

Trusted by teams securing millions of inboxes

Why so many DMARC reports?

The number of DMARC report emails you receive daily is directly proportional to two main factors: the volume of email sent from your domain and the number of Mailbox Providers (MBPs) that receive your emails and participate in DMARC reporting. Every major MBP, such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and others, typically sends one aggregate DMARC report per day for the emails they processed from your domain on the previous day. This means if your domain sends emails to users on 150 different MBPs, you can expect around 150 reports daily.

For organizations with high email volumes, especially those sending thousands or even millions of emails per day, this can quickly translate into hundreds, if not thousands, of daily DMARC reports. This is perfectly normal and indicates that your DMARC record is correctly configured and that MBPs are actively providing you with the data needed to monitor your domain's email ecosystem. It's a sign that the DMARC protocol is working as intended.

Recently, new requirements from Google and Yahoo for bulk senders (over 5,000 emails/day) have made DMARC a mandatory part of email authentication. This means even more senders are now encountering this volume of reports, further emphasizing the need for effective management solutions.

The purpose of aggregate reports

DMARC reports (RUA) provide a summary of all email traffic seen by a reporting Mailbox Provider for your domain. This includes emails that passed authentication (SPF and DKIM) and those that failed. They are essential for understanding your email ecosystem, identifying legitimate sending sources, and detecting unauthorized use of your domain. You won't necessarily see failures unless there is an issue with DMARC alignment, which is part of the normal monitoring process. These reports are meant to give you a comprehensive overview, not just highlight problems.

The two types of DMARC reports

DMARC reports come in two primary types, configured via the DMARC record tags: Aggregate reports (RUA) and Forensic reports (RUF).

Aggregate reports (RUA)

These are XML documents sent daily to the email address specified in the rua tag of your DMARC record. They provide a high-level overview of email traffic, including:

Source IP addresses: Where emails claiming to be from your domain originated.
Volume: How many emails were seen from each source.
Authentication results: Whether emails passed SPF, DKIM, and DMARC alignment.
Policy applied: What action was taken (none, quarantine, or reject) based on your DMARC policy.

These reports are crucial for monitoring your domain's email health and are the primary source of data for DMARC implementation.

Forensic reports (RUF)

Forensic reports are sent to the email address specified in the ruf tag. Unlike aggregate reports, these provide detailed, anonymized copies of individual emails that failed DMARC authentication. They can include:

Original message headers and bodies: Though often redacted for privacy, these can provide granular details about fraudulent emails.
Failure reasons: Specific authentication failures (SPF, DKIM, alignment).

While potentially useful for deep dives into specific spoofing attempts, RUF reports are not widely adopted by many Mailbox Providers due to privacy concerns and the potential for high volume. Therefore, you should not expect to receive many, if any, of these reports.

Given that aggregate reports are the primary source of DMARC data, the sheer volume and XML format make manual analysis impractical, if not impossible, for most organizations. This is where DMARC management solutions become indispensable.

How to manage the influx of reports

Manually sifting through hundreds or thousands of XML files daily to extract meaningful insights is not feasible. DMARC reports, while rich in data, are designed for machine processing, not human readability. They are essentially raw data logs.

Example DMARC aggregate report (XML)xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<feedback>
  <report_metadata>
    <org_name>google.com</org_name>
    <email>noreply-dmarc-support@google.com</email>
    <extra_contact_info>https://support.google.com/a/answer/2466580</extra_contact_info>
    <report_id>1234567890.example.com</report_id>
    <date_range>
      <begin>1678838400</begin>
      <end>1678924799</end>
    </date_range>
  </report_metadata>
  <policy_published>
    <domain>yourdomain.com</domain>
    <adkim>r</adkim>
    <aspf>r</aspf>
    <p>none</p>
    <sp>none</sp>
    <pct>100</pct>
  </policy_published>
  <record>
    <row>
      <source_ip>203.0.113.45</source_ip>
      <count>150</count>
      <policy_evaluated>
        <disposition>none</disposition>
        <dkim>pass</dkim>
        <spf>pass</spf>
      </policy_evaluated>
    </row>
    <record>
      <row>
        <source_ip>192.0.2.10</source_ip>
        <count>5</count>
        <policy_evaluated>
          <disposition>none</disposition>
          <dkim>fail</dkim>
          <spf>fail</spf>
        </policy_evaluated>
      </row>
    </record>
  </record>
</feedback>

This is why an automated DMARC report analysis solution is crucial. These services parse the raw XML, aggregate the data, and present it in a digestible, actionable format, typically via a dashboard or summarized email reports. They transform chaotic data into clear insights, allowing you to quickly identify legitimate senders, detect unauthorized usage, and monitor your email deliverability.

A good DMARC analysis tool will provide dashboards showing compliance rates, identified sending sources, and authentication failures. This allows you to quickly see which emails are passing or failing SPF and DKIM authentication, and more importantly, DMARC alignment. Without such a tool, managing DMARC reports becomes an insurmountable task, rendering the benefits of DMARC largely inaccessible.

Leveraging DMARC data for security and deliverability

Consistent monitoring of your DMARC reports is essential for maintaining strong email security and deliverability. It helps you build a complete picture of your email sending landscape. The data from these reports allows you to identify legitimate sending services you might not have realized were sending on your behalf, such as marketing platforms, transactional email services, or CRM systems.

More importantly, these reports are your first line of defense against email spoofing and phishing attacks. By analyzing the failures, you can pinpoint unauthorized senders attempting to impersonate your domain. This information empowers you to move your DMARC policy from p=none to p=quarantine or p=reject, effectively telling recipient servers to block fraudulent emails.

Leveraging DMARC reports also helps in troubleshooting deliverability issues. If legitimate emails are failing DMARC checks, the reports can provide clues about misconfigurations in your SPF or DKIM records. Regularly reviewing these reports ensures that your email authentication protocols are robust and that your emails are consistently reaching the inbox.

Data point	Why it matters
Source IP	Identifies where emails originate. Essential for discovering all legitimate senders for your domain.
Count	Shows the volume of emails from each source. Helps prioritize which sources need authentication setup.
SPF/DKIM/DMARC Pass/Fail	Indicates authentication status. Critical for identifying spoofing attempts and diagnosing legitimate email failures.
Disposition	Shows the action taken by the receiving server (none, quarantine, reject). Helps verify your policy is working as intended.

Views from the trenches

Best practices

Always direct your DMARC reports to an email address specifically set up to handle a large volume of incoming mail, or even better, a dedicated DMARC management service.

Start your DMARC implementation with a policy of p=none to gather data without impacting legitimate email, then gradually move to stricter policies like quarantine or reject.

Regularly review your DMARC reports to identify all legitimate sending sources for your domain and ensure they are properly authenticated with SPF and DKIM.

Use DMARC reports to monitor for unauthorized senders and potential brand impersonation, which helps protect your domain's reputation and prevents phishing attacks.

Leverage the insights from DMARC reports to fine-tune your email authentication settings, ensuring optimal email deliverability and security.

Common pitfalls

Being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of DMARC reports and failing to analyze them, thus missing critical insights into email security and deliverability issues.

Expecting many forensic (RUF) reports; these are rarely sent by Mailbox Providers due to privacy concerns and high volume.

Not having a proper system in place to parse and visualize the XML data from aggregate reports, making them impossible to understand.

Misinterpreting DMARC report data, leading to incorrect assumptions about email authentication failures or legitimate sending sources.

Failing to act on the insights from DMARC reports, which can leave your domain vulnerable to spoofing and negatively impact deliverability.

Expert tips

Use a DMARC monitoring service to automate the parsing, aggregation, and visualization of your DMARC reports, transforming raw XML into actionable insights.

Understand that DMARC reports indicate whether DMARC alignment is passing or failing, not necessarily SPF or DKIM issues directly.

Ensure that all email service providers, CRMs, and other platforms sending email on your behalf are properly configured with SPF and DKIM to achieve DMARC alignment.

If you're getting a lot of reports, it's generally a good sign that many Mailbox Providers are checking your DMARC record and sending you data, indicating broad DMARC participation.

Consider setting up alerts within your DMARC monitoring tool for significant changes in report data, such as sudden spikes in failures or new unrecognized senders.

Marketer view

A marketer from Email Geeks says they should expect approximately one DMARC aggregate report daily from each Mailbox Provider that receives mail from their domain and participates in DMARC reporting, recommending an automated solution for managing the volume.

2020-07-10 - Email Geeks

Expert view

An expert from Email Geeks says forensic (RUF) reports are not widely adopted, so senders should not expect to receive many, if any, of these reports.

2020-07-10 - Email Geeks

Final thoughts

The volume of DMARC report emails can initially be daunting, but it's a necessary aspect of robust email security. These reports are your eyes and ears into your email's journey across the internet. By understanding their nature and utilizing proper management tools, you can transform a flood of XML files into a powerful data stream that protects your brand and ensures your emails reach their intended recipients.

Embracing DMARC and its reporting features is no longer optional, especially with evolving sender requirements from major Mailbox Providers. The insights gained are invaluable for maintaining a strong domain reputation, combating phishing, and optimizing email deliverability for all your communications.