Newsletter 48 - 2026 Email Provider Changes

📢 Important: Help Us Keep Your Devotionals Flowing

A Special Note on Email Delivery in 2026

We love sharing the daily devotional with you! However, how email works has changed significantly this year. Since the beginning of the year, we have seen a sharp increase in people who can no longer receive the devotional via email, which prompted us to do some research. Apparently, major providers (like Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail) now use advanced AI to decide which emails you see. 

Why "Mark as Spam / Junk" is different now:

In the past, marking an email as spam was like throwing away a single piece of mail. In 2026, it is more like "teaching" a robot.

The AI "One-Strike" Effect: If you mark a devotional as spam just once, the provider's AI may permanently "learn" to block all future emails from Refreshing Hope to your account—even if you try to resubscribe later. In many cases, when you receive the next email from us, the AI will automatically trigger a complaint and block the email before it even reaches your Inbox, making it nearly impossible for us to reach you again. There is nothing we can do about it from our end, but read below for some tips. 

Email Forwarding: Be careful not to forward the devotional to people who don’t want it! If they mark it as spam, it is the same as if you had done it. 

System Lockouts: Because our system is designed to protect our reputation, a single "Spam" report will automatically unsubscribe you to prevent further delivery issues. You can sign back up, but once you have trained the AI to block emails from Refreshing Hope, they continue to do so.

The Best Way to Manage Your Emails:

If you need a break or wish to stop receiving the devotionals, please do not use the "Report Spam" or "Junk" button in your email app. Instead reply to the email with "Unsubscribe" and we will remove you. This tells the systems (and us) that you're just opting out, which keeps your inbox "healthy." You can also go to your profile > subscriptions on refreshinghope.org to manage all your notifications from Refreshing Hope.

Mark as "Not Spam": If you find our email in your Junk folder, please move it to your Inbox or mark it as "Not Spam." This "teaches" the AI that you value these messages and want to keep receiving them.

Add our Email to Your Address Book or Contacts: To make sure our emails don't get accidentally blocked by new AI security filters, please take 10 seconds to add our email address to your Contacts or Address Book. Doing this "vouches" for us with your email provider (like Gmail or Hotmail) and tells their system that you want to hear from us. It’s the best way to prevent your devotional from landing in the "Junk" folder!

Email Alternatives: There are more ways to receive the devotional than just email these days:

Text Messages: You can subscribe to SMS text messages in your user profile > subscriptions and even set what time you would like to receive them.

App Notifications: On most devices, you can enable App Notifications and be notified when a new devotional is posted and more in your user profile > subscriptions. You do not even have to install the app to use these.

Add a Bookmark: You can just add a bookmark or create a shortcut to https://www.refreshinghope.org/blogs/latest and always see the latest devotional.

Thank you for being part of our community and for helping us ensure these devotionals reach everyone who needs them!