Auto Validation - Amazon Simple Email Service
Auto Validation (console)Configuration set overridesAuto Validation (AWS CLI)

Auto Validation

Auto Validation automatically reviews all outbound email addresses before sending and only delivers messages to recipients that meet your selected validation threshold. This helps you protect your sender reputation by preventing sends to likely invalid or risky addresses without requiring manual intervention or API integration.

When Auto Validation is enabled, Amazon SES validates each recipient address as part of attempting delivery. Addresses that don't meet your threshold are automatically suppressed. You can also set up configuration set event destinations to track which emails did not pass the validation threshold.

Validation thresholds

Auto Validation currently supports three validation thresholds:

  • SES managed – Amazon SES automatically manages the threshold to suppress invalid addresses. This option allows Amazon SES to optimize the validation threshold based on your sending patterns and reputation.

  • High – Allows emails to be sent only to addresses with high delivery likelihood. This provides maximum protection for your sender reputation but may suppress some legitimate addresses with medium delivery confidence.

  • Medium – Allows emails to be sent to addresses with medium or high delivery likelihood. This balances reputation protection with delivery reach by allowing addresses with medium and high delivery confidence. This suppresses delivery to email addresses with low delivery confidence.

Important

If you choose High or Medium thresholds instead of SES managed, it is important to monitor your delivery metrics and validation results regularly.

Managing Auto Validation with the Amazon SES console

The following procedure shows you how to enable or change Auto Validation settings using the Amazon SES console.

To manage Auto Validation using the Amazon SES console

  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the Amazon SES console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ses/.

  2. In the left navigation pane, choose Auto Validation under Email Validation.

  3. Select Enabled checkbox to turn on the feature.

  4. Choose a validation threshold.

  5. Choose Save changes.

    The Auto Validation panel shows your updated settings.

Important

Auto Validation applies to all outbound emails sent through your account. Addresses that don't meet your threshold will be suppressed. You also have an option to enable auto validation at the configuration set level. Suppressed sends still count towards your daily send quota and you will still be charged the standard outgoing message fee for suppressed sends in addition to the fee for auto validation. For pricing information, see the SES pricing page.

Enable Auto Validation at Configuration set level

You can override account-level Auto Validation settings for specific configuration sets. This allows you to apply different validation thresholds for different types of email campaigns.

To configure Auto Validation for a configuration set

  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the Amazon SES console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ses/.

  2. In the left navigation pane, choose Configuration sets under Configuration.

  3. Choose the configuration set you want to configure.

  4. In the Auto Validation options section, choose Edit.

  5. Select the Override account level Auto Validation settings checkbox.

  6. Select the Auto Validation enabled checkbox to enable Auto Validation for this configuration set.

  7. For Validation threshold, select either:

    • SES managed – Amazon SES automatically manages the threshold.

    • High – Only addresses with high delivery likelihood.

    • Medium – Addresses with medium delivery likelihood.

  8. Choose Save changes.

If you don't override the account-level settings, the configuration set will use the Auto Validation settings defined at the account level. You can also set up event destinations to track which emails did not pass the validation threshold.

Managing Auto Validation with the AWS CLI

The following examples show you how to enable and configure Auto Validation using the AWS CLI.

To manage Auto Validation using the AWS CLI

You can use the PutAccountSuppressionAttributes operation in the Amazon SES API v2 to manage Auto Validation. You can call this operation from the AWS CLI, as shown in the following examples.

  • Enable Auto Validation with a high threshold:

    aws --region us-east-1 sesv2 put-account-suppression-attributes --cli-input-json file://auto-validation.json

    The input file looks similar to this:

    {
    "SuppressedReasons": ["BOUNCE", "COMPLAINT"],
    "ValidationOptions": {
        "ConditionThreshold": {
            "ConditionThresholdEnabled": "ENABLED",
            "OverallConfidenceThreshold": {
                "Verdict": "HIGH"
            }
        }
    }
}

  • Change the threshold to medium:

    {
    "SuppressedReasons": ["BOUNCE", "COMPLAINT"],
    "ValidationOptions": {
        "ConditionThreshold": {
            "ConditionThresholdEnabled": "ENABLED",
            "OverallConfidenceThreshold": {
                "Verdict": "MEDIUM"
            }
        }
    }
}

  • Use SES managed threshold:

    {
    "SuppressedReasons": ["BOUNCE", "COMPLAINT"],
    "ValidationOptions": {
        "ConditionThreshold": {
            "ConditionThresholdEnabled": "ENABLED",
            "OverallConfidenceThreshold": {
                "Verdict": "MANAGED"
            }
        }
    }
}

  • Disable Auto Validation:

    {
    "SuppressedReasons": ["BOUNCE", "COMPLAINT"],
    "ValidationOptions": {
        "ConditionThreshold": {
            "ConditionThresholdEnabled": "DISABLED"
        }
    }
}

  • To verify the outcome:

    aws --region us-east-1 sesv2 get-account

For more information about parameter values and data types, see the SuppressionAttributes data type in the Amazon SES API v2 reference.

To configure Auto Validation for a configuration set using the AWS CLI

You can use the PutConfigurationSetSuppressionOptions operation to override Auto Validation settings for a specific configuration set.

  • Override account-level settings for a configuration set:

    aws --region us-east-1 sesv2 put-configuration-set-suppression-options --cli-input-json file://config-set-auto-validation.json

    The input file looks similar to this:

    {
    "ConfigurationSetName": "my-config-set",
    "SuppressedReasons": ["BOUNCE", "COMPLAINT"],
    "ValidationOptions": {
        "ConditionThreshold": {
            "ConditionThresholdEnabled": "ENABLED",
            "OverallConfidenceThreshold": {
                "Verdict": "HIGH"
            }
        }
    }
}

  • To verify the outcome:

    aws --region us-east-1 sesv2 get-configuration-set --configuration-set-name my-config-set