# Email overview

Bird Email is a complete sending platform: transactional and marketing email through one API, backed by Bird's managed delivery infrastructure. You call Bird's API with a `bk_{region}_…` key against your regional host (`https://us1.platform.bird.com` or `https://eu1.platform.bird.com`); Bird handles SMTP delivery, DKIM signing, IP reputation, and everything else between your request and the recipient's inbox.

If you want to send something first, start with the [quickstart](/docs/get-started/send-your-first-email). This page is the map of everything else: how sending works, the Email app in the dashboard, and the guides behind each part of it.

## How sending works

You send email with `POST /v1/email/messages`. The API validates your request and your sending domain, then returns `202 Accepted` with a message ID; delivery happens asynchronously from there. A `202` means Bird has durably accepted your send and is working on it: the actual delivery outcome (delivered, bounced, deferred, complained) arrives afterwards, per recipient, through [events and webhooks](/docs/guides/email/events) and the message read endpoints. Full request and response shapes live in the [API reference](/docs/api/reference/create-email-message).

Two ideas shape the whole API:

- **A send is not a delivery.** One message can have many recipients, and each recipient has its own lifecycle. The message-level status you see in list and read endpoints is an aggregate over recipient states. Suppression, for the same reason, is evaluated per recipient: a suppressed address is rejected while the rest of the send delivers.
- **Why you send matters.** Every message belongs to a [category](/docs/guides/email/categories), `transactional` or `marketing`, which determines how suppressions apply. Password resets must reach people who unsubscribed from your newsletter; categories are how Bird knows the difference.

Sends don't have to go out immediately or over HTTP: [scheduled sending](/docs/guides/email/scheduled-sending) holds a message until a time you set, and [SMTP](/docs/guides/email/smtp) accepts submissions from anything that can speak the protocol.

## The Email app in the dashboard

In the [dashboard](/docs/knowledge-base/getting-started/dashboard-tour), Email is one of the channels in the sidebar's Products section. Its pages, and where each one's guide lives:

| Page                                                                        | What it's for                                                                                                                                     |
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| [**Metrics**](https://bird.com/dashboard/w/email/metrics)                   | Delivery, open, bounce, and complaint rates over time; see [Email metrics](/docs/guides/email/tracking-and-metrics)                               |
| [**Emails**](https://bird.com/dashboard/w/email/emails)                     | Every message sent (and, on its Receiving tab, [received](/docs/guides/email/receiving-email)); see the [email log](/docs/guides/email/email-log) |
| [**Domains**](https://bird.com/dashboard/w/email/domains)                   | Your sending domains, their DNS records, and live verification status; see [Sending domains](/docs/guides/email/sending-domains)                  |
| [**IP Pools**](https://bird.com/dashboard/w/email/ip-pools)                 | Dedicated IPs and how they're grouped, relevant at higher volumes; see [Dedicated IPs & pools](/docs/guides/email/dedicated-ips-and-pools)        |
| [**Suppressions**](https://bird.com/dashboard/w/email/suppressions)         | Addresses Bird won't send to, and why; see [Suppressions](/docs/guides/email/suppressions)                                                        |
| [**Unsubscribe page**](https://bird.com/dashboard/w/email/unsubscribe-page) | The hosted opt-out page's branding; see [Unsubscribe links](/docs/guides/email/unsubscribe-links)                                                 |
| [**SMTP**](https://bird.com/dashboard/w/email/smtp-configs)                 | Credentials for submitting mail over SMTP instead of the API; see [SMTP](/docs/guides/email/smtp)                                                 |

Recipients live outside the Email app as their own dashboard sections: [**Contacts**](https://bird.com/dashboard/w/contacts) stores recipients with typed custom properties (see [Contacts](/docs/guides/email/contacts)), and [**Audiences**](https://bird.com/dashboard/w/audiences) groups them into reusable lists (see [Audiences](/docs/guides/email/audiences)).

A new workspace also shows an **Onboarding** checklist here: verify a domain, create a key, send a message, as a to-do list. It disappears from your day-to-day once you've finished it.

## Sending domains and authentication

Before you can send from your own address, you verify ownership of the domain via DNS. [Sending domains](/docs/guides/email/sending-domains) covers registration and verification; [DKIM, SPF, and DMARC](/docs/guides/email/dkim-spf-dmarc) explains the authentication records themselves: what each one proves to receiving mailbox providers and how Bird generates them for you. Once DMARC is in place, [BIMI](/docs/guides/email/bimi) lets you display your logo next to your messages in supporting inboxes.

## Reputation and deliverability

Deliverability is mostly reputation management, and Bird handles the heavy lifting:

- **[Suppressions](/docs/guides/email/suppressions)**: hard bounces, spam complaints, and unsubscribes automatically add recipients to your workspace suppression list, so you never repeatedly mail addresses that damage your reputation. You can also manage the list yourself via the API.
- **[Dedicated IPs and pools](/docs/guides/email/dedicated-ips-and-pools)**: high-volume senders can isolate their reputation on their own IP addresses instead of shared infrastructure, and route different traffic through different pools.
- **[IP warmup](/docs/guides/email/ip-warmup)**: new dedicated IPs need gradually increasing volume before mailbox providers trust them; this page explains the warmup process.

## Visibility

Every message produces a per-recipient event timeline: accepted, processed, delivered, bounced, opened, clicked, and more.

- **[Email log](/docs/guides/email/email-log)**: the per-message view in the dashboard: every send, its per-recipient timeline, and the exact content that went out.
- **[Email metrics](/docs/guides/email/tracking-and-metrics)**: open and click tracking, and the aggregate delivery, bounce, and engagement metrics derived from your traffic.
- **[Events](/docs/guides/email/events)**: the event vocabulary, recipient lifecycle, and webhook delivery to your own endpoints.

## Receiving email

Bird receives as well as sends. [Receiving email](/docs/guides/email/receiving-email) covers both paths, a minted forwarding address that needs no DNS setup or MX records on a subdomain you own, plus reading received messages and reacting to the `email.received` webhook.

## Testing without sending

The [mail sandbox](/docs/guides/email/testing-sandbox) lets you exercise your whole integration without delivering to a real inbox. Magic recipient addresses at `messagebird.dev` (for example `bounce@messagebird.dev`) deterministically produce their named outcome through the real event and webhook pipeline, so the payloads your handlers receive are exactly what production sends. Simulated bounces and complaints don't write to your suppression list, so the addresses stay reusable; the sandbox guide owns the full address list and each one's event sequence.

## Next steps

| Page                                                                  | What it covers                                                  |
| --------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------- |
| [Send your first email](/docs/get-started/send-your-first-email)      | Quickstart: API key to delivered message                        |
| [Sending email](/docs/guides/email/sending-email)                     | The send API in depth: recipients, content, tags, metadata      |
| [Scheduled sending](/docs/guides/email/scheduled-sending)             | Queue a send for a future time, and cancel before it goes out   |
| [SMTP](/docs/guides/email/smtp)                                       | Submit over SMTP instead of the API                             |
| [Email log](/docs/guides/email/email-log)                             | Every sent message, its recipient timeline, and its content     |
| [Contacts](/docs/guides/email/contacts)                               | Stored recipients, typed properties, and bulk import            |
| [Audiences](/docs/guides/email/audiences)                             | Reusable recipient lists and how membership works               |
| [Sending domains](/docs/guides/email/sending-domains)                 | Registering and verifying the domains you send from             |
| [Receiving email](/docs/guides/email/receiving-email)                 | Forwarding addresses, MX receiving, and `email.received`        |
| [DKIM, SPF, and DMARC](/docs/guides/email/dkim-spf-dmarc)             | Email authentication records                                    |
| [Categories](/docs/guides/email/categories)                           | Transactional vs marketing and suppression policy               |
| [Suppressions](/docs/guides/email/suppressions)                       | The suppression list and how it protects your reputation        |
| [Unsubscribe links](/docs/guides/email/unsubscribe-links)             | One-click unsubscribe, the in-body link, and the hosted page    |
| [Dedicated IPs and pools](/docs/guides/email/dedicated-ips-and-pools) | Isolating and routing your sending reputation                   |
| [IP warmup](/docs/guides/email/ip-warmup)                             | Building trust on new dedicated IPs                             |
| [Email metrics](/docs/guides/email/tracking-and-metrics)              | Opens, clicks, and aggregate stats                              |
| [Events](/docs/guides/email/events)                                   | Event types and webhooks                                        |
| [Testing sandbox](/docs/guides/email/testing-sandbox)                 | Simulated delivery outcomes via magic addresses                 |
| [BIMI](/docs/guides/email/bimi)                                       | Brand logos in the inbox                                        |
| [Verify overview](/docs/guides/verify/overview)                       | One-time passcodes over email and SMS, sent and checked by Bird |
| [API reference: messages](/docs/api/reference/create-email-message)   | Endpoint, schema, and error details                             |