LAST UPDATED: September 2025
Another year (month, week, day), another email marketing update, right?
Well, 2025 hasn’t disappointed with its additions to the list of updates that every digital marketer, email marketer, and business leader should have on their radar.
From new Gmail features to Microsoft catch-up, AI inboxes and bot clicks - here’s what’s changing in email marketing and what it means for your business.
RE:markable is the weekly email about emails. Dropping the latest email marketing news, updates, insights, free resources, upcoming masterclasses, webinars, and of course, a little inbox mischief.
The TL;DR: Gmail has started rolling out its one-stop dashboard, called Manage Subscriptions, which allows users to see every email list they’re on and unsubscribe from all mailing lists tied to a sender in one click.
Bye-bye, spammy mailing lists you just can’t seem to unsubscribe from (assuming you even subscribed to begin with!).
" This will give you a bird’s eye view of all your upcoming package deliveries in one simple, organized list. Don’t worry — we’ll continue to show packages that are set to arrive within 24 hours at the top of your primary inbox, as well as in a summary card within your purchase emails. This is an entirely new view that lets you see all purchase-related emails and package updates in one simple, streamlined interface." - Google's blog.
Pictured on the left is the inbox purchase view with three receipt emails and four summary cards of packages arriving soon. Pictured on the right is the left menu on Gmail showing the new “Purchases” view.
Alongside the Purchases view, Google also announced changes to the Promotions tab.
Instead of just showing emails in chronological order, Gmail will soon let users sort promotions by “most relevant.” This means the brands and offers people engage with most will surface to the top. Gmail is also adding nudges that highlight time-sensitive deals so users don’t miss out.
For anyone who prefers the old way, there’s still the option to sort by “most recent.” The rollout starts on mobile in the coming weeks for personal Google accounts!
So, how exactly does Gmail decide what’s “relevant”?
They haven’t given us a formula, and they never will. But based on how Gmail already uses machine learning to decide what’s important in the Primary tab, I think it comes down to a mix of:
Engagement history: opens (and number of opens), clicks, time spent reading, even forwarding
Recency: whether that engagement is fresh or from months ago
Sender consistency: brands that deliver regular, expected campaigns vs those that hit sporadically
User behaviour: things like starring, archiving, deleting, or dragging emails to different tabs or folders
Content cues: subject lines and phrasing that suggest urgency or time-sensitivity (which ties into those nudges)
In short, Gmail is trying to make Promotions feel more useful, less like where brand emails go to die.
This raises the stakes for engagement massively. If your emails are opened and clicked, you’ll likely earn a prime spot in the “most relevant” view. If they’re ignored, you’ll slide further down.
But this sucks for brands because getting an open and/or a click is HARD - most people won't see your emails, so you MUST innovate here.
I think of this as Gmail grading your brand’s relationship with every single subscriber.
If you treat their inbox with respect, send content that matters, and keep engagement high, Gmail will reward you with visibility. If you don’t, you’ll find yourself buried.
One of the quieter but more important updates in 2025 is happening in Gmail Postmaster Tools.
Google has confirmed that the original v1 Postmaster interface will be retired on September 30, 2025. After that, the old dashboards will disappear and everyone will be redirected to Postmaster v2, which first launched in 2024.
The v2 interface looks different and, importantly, has retired the old Domain and IP reputation dashboards.
That means some of the reports marketers relied on for years are simply gone.
To balance that, Google has promised that a new v2 API will be released before the end of 2025, which should give us better programmatic access to the remaining data.
Not bragging but look how great my domain reputation is 💅💅
In April 2025, Google rolled out a Workspace feature drop that brought more Gemini-powered AI into Gmail. The changes are subtle but important, because they’re starting to reshape how people interact with their inboxes.
The updates include:
Smarter Smart Replies: Gmail can now generate replies that reflect your personal writing style and tone, drawing on your past emails and even your documents. Instead of the generic “Sounds good!” or “Thanks,” users will see suggestions that sound a lot more like them.
“Help me write” in more languages: The drafting tool, which helps people generate full emails from short prompts, has expanded beyond English into more languages. That makes AI-assisted writing more accessible globally.
Calendar integration from email: Gmail can now suggest and create calendar events directly from emails, using Gemini to extract context like dates, times, and topics.
This is a turning point for inbox behaviour.
As AI becomes the middle layer between senders and readers, marketers need to adapt.
Strip out all the waffling on, front load your value and make calls-to-action unmissable. The inbox is no longer just human-to-human, it’s human-to-AI-to-human.
The businesses that embrace that shift will keep winning attention; those that ignore it risk being skimmed, skipped, or side-lined by Gmail’s own AI.
On April 18, 2025, Google announced a new round of Workspace updates, including several Gmail enhancements, as part of its ongoing “Workspace feature drop” programme. The rollout began immediately and continued over the following weeks, hitting both web and mobile versions of Gmail.
The highlights for Gmail included:
Contextual Smart Replies – suggested replies that are more personalised and better reflect the tone of the conversation.
Event creation from email – the ability to add events to Google Calendar directly from an email, using AI to parse dates, times, and context.
Gmail mobile app updates – improvements to the Android app interface, with better integration into other Workspace apps.
Expanded AI tools and controls – bringing Gemini deeper into Gmail and Workspace, giving users more options to draft, edit, and manage tasks inside their inbox.
These updates didn’t make big headlines because they’re incremental, but that’s the point. Google is continuously nudging Gmail into being a smarter, more connected workspace. For marketers, the implication is that your email isn’t just competing with other emails anymore; it’s competing with Gmail itself, and all the shortcuts and smart actions it offers. If you want your message to break through, it needs to be crystal clear, instantly valuable, and optimised for a user who might never scroll past the first line.
Google rolled out a new spam update starting on August 26, 2025, which fully completed by September 22, 2025. The update was confirmed publicly by Google’s Search team and covered by outlets like Search Engine Land.
Unlike some past updates that target a specific type of spam or abuse, this was described as a broad spam update, essentially a wide-reaching refresh of Gmail’s spam-detection algorithms.
Google didn’t provide a detailed theme, which is often the case, but the timing and duration make it clear this was a significant recalibration.
Every spam update is another reminder that email is an ecosystem: if you’re cutting corners, Gmail will catch up with you. The August 2025 update didn’t introduce a new rule, it reinforced an old truth. If your strategy is clean, engaged, and compliant, you’ll weather the storm. If not, this is the kind of update that can bury your campaigns in the spam folder overnight.
Shielded Email is Google’s answer to features like Apple’s “Hide My Email.” The idea: users can generate temporary email aliases (ones you don’t have to expose your real address) which forward to your main inbox, and you can disable forwarding if spam or unwanted mail starts coming through.
So in effect, if you give your alias out and it gets abused or starts getting spam, you just shut it off—your real inbox stays clean.
The earliest public leak surfaced around November 14, 2024, via an APK teardown of Google Play Services. The teardown revealed strings in code referencing “Shielded Email,” “generated email addresses,” “turn off forwarding,” etc. Google+Android Authority
Android Authority spotted the feature in the Autofill settings menu (Android side), although tapping it currently leads to an empty page. Android Authority
As of now, no official launch date has been confirmed by Google. Google+ Captain
Some tech outlets (like Forbes) have spoken as though it’s rolling out or imminent, but that appears speculative at this stage. Forbes
So: We know about it, we see clues in code and menus, but it’s not live in full form (yet).
This is one of those features that could seem small until it’s everywhere. Google is smart to build alias functionality into the ecosystem (Autofill, Gmail) rather than forcing users to adopt separate third-party tools. If they roll it out well, it could shift how people treat email sign-ups and cleaning.
For marketers, this is a heads-up: you’ll need to adapt to an environment where many users won’t share their true email, and where alias disablement is a kind of “unsubscribe by stealth.” Keep your value fast, your authentication clean, and your ux respectful.
Microsoft launched their deliverability rules, hot on the heels of Google and Yahoo’s 2024 rules - what can you expect?
On April 2, 2025, Microsoft announced new rules for high-volume senders emailing Outlook.com addresses (Hotmail, Live, MSN). An update followed on April 29, 2025 to clarify enforcement. The policy officially went live on May 5, 2025.
The requirements apply to anyone sending 5,000 or more emails per day to Microsoft consumer domains. To reach the inbox, senders must:
Authenticate with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC (aligned and valid).
Use a valid, functional From and Reply-To address (no noreply@ loopholes).
Provide a clear unsubscribe option and respect user opt-outs.
Follow Microsoft’s sender best practices to maintain low complaint rates.
Non-compliant messages may be filtered to Junk or outright rejected, often with new error codes like 550 5.7.515 appearing in bounce logs.
What’s happening / what’s known
Outlook.com (consumer) and Office 365 (enterprise) use distinct spam/filtering engines. The same message may land in inbox on one and in Junk/quarantine on the other. The Easiest Email Marketing Platform
Microsoft uses Smart Network Data Services (SNDS) to monitor IP reputation, complaint rates, etc. Senders can use SNDS to see how Microsoft views their IPs. The Easiest Email Marketing Platform+1
Even properly authenticated emails (SPF/DKIM passing) have been reported by senders to land in spam/quarantine, especially when sender reputation or content signals are weak. The Easiest Email Marketing Platform+1
Microsoft’s Defender/security settings for Office 365 include anti-spam, anti-phishing, and outbound spam policies. Admins can configure settings for “Standard” or “Strict” protection levels. Microsoft Learn
Recent update
In June 2025, Microsoft released an update to “New Outlook for Windows” allowing users to disable Copilot, and expanded Copilot features across multiple email accounts (not just the one tied to Copilot). Thurrott.com
Another front: Microsoft is planning a change in Outlook mobile interfaces (iOS/Android) around September 2025, moving the send button location (from bottom to top) to reduce accidental sends. Cinco Días
What this means for users
Users get more control over AI features (turning Copilot off) and more consistent behavior across accounts.
UI shifts may affect how they compose, review, and send messages — e.g. fewer mis-click sends on mobile.
What this means for marketers/businesses
UI changes can subtly influence user behaviour (e.g. how they reply, forward, or engage). Test how your email designs behave in new UI versions.
Copilot’s expansion may lead to AI-assisted replies from users (similar to Gmail’s Smart Replies), so your copy needs to account for automated behaviour.
Any features that affect open/reply behaviour shift how your campaign metrics could change — don’t assume behaviour stays static.
Tools like Mimecast, Barracuda, and Microsoft Defender are great from a security perspective, but when it comes to your metrics, they could be wreaking havoc after scanning and clicking every link before a human lands their eyes on your email.
Protecting users from malicious links is important, of course, but it’s important to understand the detrimental impact these tools can have on your metrics.
Ah, AI, AI… you can’t so much as breathe without seeing something about AI somewhere, can you?
Well, it’s for good reason in this blog, as AI is starting to:
Apple Mail (iOS 18), Gmail (using Gemini AI), and Yahoo Mail are all using AI email inbox summaries and features.
Context note: Tabs/Categories and the new Mail behaviours first arrived on iPhone with iOS 18.2 (December 2024) and later expanded across Apple’s platforms; iOS 26 makes this the modern, unified baseline.
Tabs/Categories: Mail automatically sorts incoming email into Primary, Transactions, Updates, and Promotions. Within these, Apple also groups messages from the same sender so people can skim a thread of receipts, alerts, or promos at a glance (Primary messages aren’t grouped). Apple Support
AI-generated summaries: In the inbox and at the top of messages, Apple Intelligence shows short summaries of each email, helping people decide faster whether to open or act. Apple Support
Digest view/bundling: Multiple emails from the same sender (especially in Transactions/Updates/Promotions) are collapsed into a single entry—great for tidiness, risky for low-signal messages. sendlayer.com
BIMI (brand logos): Apple Mail supports BIMI (brand-verified logos) on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and iCloud.com—this predates iOS 26 but matters more now that inboxes are busier. Apple Support
Because the inbox is overloaded. Apple’s aim is to prioritise meaning over chronology: surface what matters (Primary, time-sensitive Transactions), summarise the rest, and bundle repetitive senders so users aren’t wading through noise. It’s also consistent with Apple’s broader push toward on-device intelligence and a unified experience across iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
Apple has basically turned Mail into a filter, a reader, and a gatekeeper all at once.
That means marketers don’t just need to “write good emails”, they need to engineer visibility. Crisp subjects, front-loaded value, minimal rubbish emails and clear category signals are now survival tools. The inbox is no longer neutral, it’s actively deciding what your subscribers see, and how. If you play by those rules, you’ll thrive. If you don’t, you’ll get buried.
In a move that caught a lot of people off guard, Yahoo Mail has dramatically reduced the amount of free storage available to its users. For years, Yahoo stood out by offering a huge 1 terabyte of inbox space. But as of July 2025, Yahoo announced that this would be cut down to just 20 GB for free accounts, with the change taking effect from August 27, 2025. Paid accounts were also hit, with Yahoo Mail Plus users dropping from around 5 TB of space to just 200 GB.
What this means is simple: once a mailbox goes over its new limit, the user will no longer be able to send or receive email until they either clear out old messages or upgrade their plan. It’s a huge change, especially for anyone who’s been sitting on years of archived emails without ever worrying about space.
Yahoo’s storage cut is a reminder that email is a moving target. Even something as basic as “how much space someone has in their inbox” can change and ripple out to affect deliverability. The brands that adapt, by keeping lists clean, monitoring bounce codes, and focusing on engaged subscribers, will be fine. The ones clinging to bloated, outdated lists? They’re about to watch a chunk of their Yahoo traffic disappear into a black hole.
2025 is already a year of email evolution, from smarter inboxes to tighter rules and privacy-first tech.
If you’re not adapting your approach to email marketing now, you need to be if you want to thrive instead of barely survive.
It doesn’t matter if you’re sending B2C promos or B2B nurture flows, you need to:
Want help navigating all of this change? Drop me a message or get in touch for an email audit or a strategy session so we can future-proof your marketing and give you some much-needed peace of mind.
RE:markable is the weekly email about emails. Dropping the latest email marketing news, updates, insights, free resources, upcoming masterclasses, webinars, and of course, a little inbox mischief.