Mimecast Personal Portal - Held, Bounced & Rejected Messages

The images in this article reflect the new MPP User Interface, which could differ from your end user experience. Please review this article for details on switching to the new UI.

This article describes how to manage Held, Bounced and Rejected messages within the Mimecast Personal Portal, including viewing, releasing, rejecting, and troubleshooting messages in these categories.

Personal On Hold Messages 

Your Administrator may have policies in place that place messages on hold. 
End Users and moderators can manage On Hold queues, where security policies have resulted in held messages in the Mimecast Personal Portal. The policies could be based on spam, attachment, or content examination policies, designed to prevent unwanted emails from reaching your Inbox. The Personal On Hold viewer allows you to view the emails that have been held and decide whether to release or reject them.

Note the following relating to releasing or rejecting messages: 

• Messages can be released or rejected either individually or in bulk. End Users, not moderated users, can also block addresses or domains when messages are released or rejected.
• Messages are automatically removed if you do not release or reject them from the Hold queue within 14 days.

You can still retrieve the email from the archive if your Administrator configures this.

• Images are not automatically displayed for held messages. After considering the security risk, end users can download the images for each message. 

Moderated On Hold Messages 

The Moderated On Hold viewer works similarly to the Personal On Hold viewer but will display emails held for other users. For example, you can manage held emails for a colleague or manager. The only difference is that this user cannot block or permit users or domains. 

Your Administrator must enable this functionality.

Releasing a Message

You can release a message by using the following steps:

1. Select the Advanced Icon.
2. Select Personal On Hold from the menu.
3. Filter the list of messages by Subject, To, From, or Reason.
4. Select one or more messages.
5. Click on the Release icon and select one of the following desired actions:

Menu option	Description
Release Email	• The email is removed from the viewer and is delivered to your Inbox. • Future emails from the sender may be Held.
Release Email & Permit Address	• The message is removed from the viewer and is delivered to your Inbox. • A Permitted Senders Policy is created for the sender's email address, meaning future messages from the sender are delivered straight to your Inbox.
Release Email & Permit Domain	• The message is removed from the viewer and is delivered to your Inbox. • A Permitted Senders Policy is created for the sender's domain, meaning future messages are delivered straight to your Inbox.

Bounced Messages 

Bounced messages are inbound or outbound messages that Mimecast has accepted, but cannot deliver to the recipient's mail server. When this occurs:

• A notification is sent to the message's sender.
• You can display the message in the Bounce viewer. This provides information about messages that Mimecast was unable to deliver. This can be useful to determine why it did not reach the intended recipient. The actual content of the bounced messages will not be shown.

Accessing the Bounce Viewer

You can navigate to the Bounce Viewer, by using the following steps:

1. Click on the Advanced icon  in the navigation menu.
2. Click on the Bounced Messages menu item. A list of bounced messages in the last month is displayed.
3. If required, you can filter the list of messages by typing into the Filter field.
4. Click on a Message to view its properties.

Bounced messages (both outbound and inbound) are still available in the Mimecast archive. This is due to the message originally being accepted by Mimecast before the delivery attempts took place. The bounce information, however, is only available for one month in the bounce viewer.

Rejected Messages 

The Rejection viewer displays messages sent to your email address that Mimecast has rejected. This generally applies to inbound emails. Rejected messages are rejected in the protocol, meaning the message's content has yet to be accepted. When this occurs, a non-delivery report is generated by the sending mail server and returned to the message's original sender.

The Rejection viewer can display information about why we rejected it. If the message was legitimate, you could use this information to address the cause of the rejection and allow the message through on the next send attempt.

With rejected messages, the email data has yet to be accepted by us, so the message cannot be retrieved. The original sender must resend it.

Accessing the Rejection Viewer

You can navigate to the Rejection Viewer by using the following steps:

1. Click on the  icon in the left-hand navigation menu.
2. Click on the Rejected Messages menu item.

   Information on rejected messages is retained for seven days, but only the current day's rejections are displayed by default.

3. If required, you can filter the list of messages by typing into the Filter toolbar field.
4. Click on a message to view its properties.

Rejecting a Message

You can reject a message, by using the following steps:

1. Click on the Advanced Icon.
2. Select Personal On Hold from the menu.
3. You can Filter the list of messages by Subject, To, From or Reason.

4. Select one or more messages.
5. Select the Reject icon and select one of the following desired actions:

Menu option	Results
Reject Email	• The message is removed from the viewer. • The sender isn't notified. • Future emails from this sender may be held.
Reject Email & Block Sender	• The message is removed from the viewer. • The sender isn't notified. • A Blocked Senders Policy is created for the sender's email address, meaning they cannot send you messages in the future.
Reject Email & Block Domain	• The message is removed from the viewer. • The sender isn't notified. • A Blocked Sender Policy is created for their domain, meaning any sender from the domain cannot send you messages in the future.