---
title: Screening
updated: 2026-10-14
summary: New senders to your real address wait for your approval.
section: Your inbox
order: 0
---

Companies get aliases, so your real address should only hear from people you know. When someone new writes to it, their email waits in **Screening** until you decide what to do. Mail to your aliases is never screened.

## Who gets straight through

- People you've approved
- People you've emailed from your real address, since they're approved when you send

An approved sender also has to pass email authentication. If a message claims to be from them but can't prove it, it goes to Screening instead.

## Deciding

- **Approve**: this email goes to your inbox, and so will their future mail.
- **Just this email**: this email goes to your inbox, but the next one comes back to Screening.
- **Block**: the email goes to **Blocked**, along with any later ones. Blocked senders are never told.

Approving or blocking someone also moves the rest of their waiting mail. You can approve or block a whole domain, too.

Links and images in a waiting email stay off until you approve the sender.

## Unverified senders

If Yellowbird can't verify who sent an email, anyone could have written it in their name. You can still let that one email through with **Just this email**, or block it, but you can't approve the sender from it.

## Changing your mind

Manage approved and blocked senders in **Settings → Screening** and **Settings → Blocked senders**. Remove an approved sender and their next email comes back to Screening.

On a free plan, Screening has its own 10 MB. When it's full, the oldest waiting mail is deleted to make room.