What the receiver is telling you

Close cousin of 4.7.0: the receiver is declining for now on policy. Explicit greylisting text means a first-contact delay and nothing more. 'Temporarily blocked' or 'try again later' without a greylisting mention means the receiver's filter has a short-term block on your IP or domain — typically after a burst of mail, a brief blocklist listing, or a complaint. Those usually clear within hours but they are a warning shot.

How to handle a soft bounce

Your server or sending tool retries soft failures automatically, usually for one to three days. Most clear on their own. The mistake is leaving an address that soft-bounces on every step in an active sequence: each attempt is logged, and a mailbox that has been full or unreachable for two weeks is not going to read a follow-up. Three consecutive soft failures is the point to remove it. Track soft bounces separately from hard ones; they are a different signal and receivers weight them differently.

What to do

1. Greylisted: nothing to do.
2. Temporarily blocked: pause sends to that provider for a few hours, then resume at lower volume.
3. Check blocklists — a short listing on a fast-moving list like SpamCop often shows up as 4.7.1 before it shows up anywhere else.
4. If it repeats daily, the receiver is soft-blocking you on reputation and the fix is the same as for 5.7.1.

don't Do not treat a repeating 4.7.1 as harmless because it is a 4xx. It is the last warning before a 5xx.

Decode the whole bounce

Paste the complete failure notice — every code and the receiver's wording — and get each part explained together.

Common questions