--- title: Clean lists slug: clean-email-lists description: Find and fix hygiene issues across your email lists so campaigns reach real, engaged recipients. productSlug: cedros productLabel: Cedros sectionKey: email-marketing sectionLabel: Email Marketing docType: panel parentSlug: email-lists --- # Clean lists The Clean Lists walk-through helps you keep your email lists healthy. Inbox providers like Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo watch how your mail performs — sending to invalid, bounced, or disengaged recipients hurts your sender reputation and can land your messages in spam folders. This page walks you through finding the risky recipients on your lists and deciding what to do with them. ## How to get here From the [Lists](email-lists.md) section, click **Clean Lists** at the top right. Click **Back to lists** at the top to return. ## What's on this page The walk-through has a few distinct screens. You'll only see one at a time, and it advances as you make selections. Once you're past the welcome screen, a step indicator at the top tracks your progress through **List**, **Issue**, **Review**, and **Cleanup**. If an operation fails, an error message appears at the top of the page. ### Welcome screen The first screen you see, marked with a **List cleanup** label. It explains why list cleanup matters and shows a **Get started** button. Click it to scan your lists and begin the wizard. If nothing needs attention, you'll skip straight to the "Your lists are clean" screen. ### Your lists are clean Shown when the scan finds no issues. It has the heading **Your lists are clean** and a message summarizing what was scanned (how many lists and recipients were checked). Two buttons: - **Recheck** — Scans your lists again. - **Back to lists** — Returns to the [Lists](email-lists.md) overview. ### Step 1 — Choose a list A grid of cards, one per list, plus an **All lists** card at the top. Each card shows: - **List name** and total recipient count. - A description line (typically the last open date, if any). - **Issue pills** — Small badges showing how many recipients on this list have each kind of issue. For example, "12 invalid emails" or "84 no recent opens." A list with no issues shows "No issues found" instead. Click the card for the list you want to clean. Click **All lists** to clean across every list at once. Lists with no issues are summarized in a callout below the grid — "3 lists look clean" — so you can see at a glance that they don't need work. ### Step 2 — Choose what to clean A grid of tiles, one per hygiene issue. Each tile shows: - **Count** — How many recipients have this issue on the list (or across all lists if you picked **All lists**). - **Label** — The issue type. - **Description** — Why it matters. The issue types are: - **Invalid email addresses** — Addresses with bad syntax or formatting. They can't receive mail and hurt your sender score every time you try. - **Bounced addresses** — Mail to these addresses came back undeliverable. Keep sending and inbox providers start treating you as spam. - **Suppressed addresses** — Addresses you've already flagged to skip. Listed here so you can review and tidy up. - **Recipients with no recent opens** — Subscribers who haven't opened any of your emails in a while. Mailbox providers treat low engagement as a spam signal. - **Unsubscribed recipients** — People who asked to stop receiving email. They should already be excluded — listed here to confirm. Above the issue tiles, a **Scan completed** line shows when the report was generated and exactly how many active lists and list memberships were checked. A zero count therefore means the completed scan found no matching recipients; it is not an unchecked or unavailable state. Tiles with a count of zero are disabled — you can't pick them. When you pick **Recipients with no recent opens**, an extra control appears: **What counts as inactive?** with options for 90, 180, or 365 days of no opens. Pick the window that fits how often you send. A confirmed recipient must also have been on the list for the full selected window, so newly added subscribers with no opens are not mislabeled inactive. Click a tile to select it, then click **Continue**. ### Step 3 — Review affected recipients While the recipients load, you'll see **Loading recipients...**. If none match, the step reads **No recipients matched this check on the selected list.** Otherwise, a summary line at the top tells you how many recipients match the check, and below that a table lists the affected recipients with these columns: - **Email** — The recipient's email address. - **List** — Which list this recipient is on (shown when you picked **All lists**). - **Membership** — Their current status on the list (subscribed, unsubscribed, bounced, pending). - **Last open** — When they last opened one of your emails. Shows "No opens" if they never have. If there are more recipients than fit in the preview, you'll see a note at the top — "Showing the first 100 of 1,200 matched recipients as a preview. The cleanup will apply to all of them." This is a preview only; the cleanup runs against every matching recipient, not just the ones shown. Review the list, then click **Continue**. ### Step 4 — Choose a cleanup action A choice of how to handle the recipients you just reviewed. The available options depend on which issue you picked: - **Suppress these addresses** — Add the recipients to your global suppression list so you never email them again. This is the recommended action for invalid and bounced addresses. Only available for those issue types. - **Remove them from sending** — Keep them in your list but mark them inactive, so future campaigns skip them. This is reversible if you change your mind later. - **Copy them to a review segment** — Copy these recipients to a separate, non-sending segment so you can review them before deciding. Restore eligible recipients to a sending list before starting a win-back campaign. Pick one, then click **Run cleanup**. ### Running screen A short spinner with a message describing what's being processed — for example, "Suppressing 124 recipients." This usually takes a few seconds. ### Success screen A confirmation showing what was done: - **Headline** — How many addresses were suppressed, removed, or moved to review. - **Detail** — A short note explaining what to expect next (for example, "Future campaigns will automatically skip these addresses"). Two buttons: - **Clean another list** — Restarts the walk-through. - **Back to lists** — Returns to the [Lists](email-lists.md) overview. ## Common things you can do here ### Clean up before sending to a big audience 1. Open Clean Lists from the [Lists](email-lists.md) section. 2. Pick **All lists** so the check covers every audience. 3. Run through invalid emails and bounces first — pick **Suppress these addresses** for both. 4. Re-run the walk-through for the **inactive** issue type, and either remove inactive recipients from sending or copy them to a non-sending review segment. ### Re-engage cold subscribers instead of removing them 1. Open Clean Lists and pick the list (or **All lists**). 2. Pick **Recipients with no recent opens** and set the inactive window to 180 days. 3. On the action step, pick **Copy them to a review segment**. The wizard creates or reuses a non-sending list containing just these recipients. 4. Review the recipients, then restore only eligible recipients to a sending list before targeting them with a win-back campaign. ### Clean up a specific list before a launch 1. Click the list's card in **Step 1**. 2. Work through each issue type one at a time — invalid emails, bounces, then inactive. 3. Suppress the unsalvageable ones, remove the rest from sending. ### Audit your suppression list 1. Pick **All lists** in Step 1. 2. Pick **Suppressed addresses** in Step 2. 3. Review the preview to confirm the suppression list looks right. You can change the inactive window or back out without applying any action. ## Tips - **Run cleanup regularly.** Doing this before each major send keeps your sender reputation healthy. - **Suppression is global.** When you suppress an address, no campaign on any list will ever send to it again. Use it for permanently bad addresses (invalid, hard bounces). - **"Remove from sending" is reversible.** It just marks the recipient as inactive on the list. You can re-import or manually re-add them later. - **The inactive window matters.** A 90-day window is aggressive (good for high-frequency senders); 365 days is forgiving (good for quarterly newsletters). Pick the window that matches your send cadence. - **The preview only shows up to 100 recipients**, but the cleanup applies to every matching recipient. The total count at the top of the review step is the authoritative number. - **Permissions matter.** Cleanup requires the **Manage email lists** permission. Without it, the **Clean Lists** button on the [Lists](email-lists.md) page is disabled. ## Troubleshooting - **"Your lists are clean" right away?** That's the result you want — nothing needs attention. Come back after your next send and recheck. - **The "Continue" button is disabled on the issue step?** The issue you picked has zero matching recipients on the selected list. Pick a different issue, or change the list in Step 1. - **Counts don't seem to match what I see on the list?** The Clean Lists scan and the list detail page use the same underlying data, but the scan filters out recipients in specific ways (for example, "inactive" only counts confirmed subscribers with no opens in the selected window). The preview table is the source of truth for who will be affected. - **The cleanup failed with an error?** The wizard returns to the action step and shows the error message at the top. Try again, or pick a different action. If it keeps failing, contact support — there may be a temporary issue with the email worker. - **Wanted to undo a suppression?** Suppressions can be lifted from the Suppression management screen in email settings. There's no undo button inside this walk-through. - **Cleaned the wrong list by accident?** "Remove from sending" is reversible — re-import the recipients or change their membership status manually. "Suppress" needs to be undone from the suppression list; "Copy to review segment" only adds a non-sending review membership, so the source-list membership is unchanged.