In late 2023 Google and Yahoo announced that in 2024 they would start to require that all promotional and marketing emails support one-click unsubscribe. Messages that do not support one-click unsubscribe may not be delivered to recipients inboxes.

Most people are familiar with the unsubscribe links in the footer (bottom) of an email message but are less familiar with the concept of one-click unsubscribe.

What is one-click unsubscribe?

One-click unsubscribe is what allows mailbox providers like Google, Yahoo, Apple and Microsoft to present an easy unsubscribe link at the top of the message. Here is an example of what Gmail recipients see in a message that supports one-click unsubscribe.

An email message advertises one-click unsubscribe by including two pieces of information in the header of every email message. If you aren’t familiar with email headers, that is ok. Email headers are normally invisible to recipients but contain metadata about the message that is used by mail servers or the recipient’s mail client.

Unless you are a developer, you don’t need to know how to set these headers.

If you are a developer, you should review RFC 2369 and RFC 8058 for more information about how to implement one-click unsubscribe. Note that one-click unsubscribes requires the List-Unsubscribe field to contain an https URI and List-Unsubscribe and List-Unsubscribe-Post headers must both be included in the DKIM signature.

What platforms support one-click unsubscribe?

Most large marketing platforms offer support for one-click unsubscribe and many include it by default. You should consult the documentation for the service that you are using to determine if it supports one-click unsubscribe and how to enable it for your mailing.

Vendors sometimes refer to one-click unsubscribe as easy unsubscribe, or RFC 8058 compliant unsubscribe. If it isn’t clear in the documentation, open a support ticket with the service provider.

Here are links to unsubscribe documentation for some of the common platforms used by campus communicators:

UW-Madison Eloqua Marketing Automation
Amazon Simple Email Service (SES)
Campaign Monitor
Constant Contact
Emma (Parent Company: Marigold)
HubSpot
Mailchimp
SendGrid

What campus platforms do NOT support one-click unsubscribe?

Microsoft 365: Microsoft 365 is not a marketing platform and does not offer any unsubscribe or list management features. Do not use your campus M365 email account to send marketing or newsletter emails outside of UW-Madison.

Google Groups: Offers options to unsubscribe from most groups but does NOT support one-click unsubscribe.

Campus Relay Service: Does not offer support for one-click unsubscribe. However, individual campus developers may implement one-click unsubscribe in emails that are sent using the campus relay service.