DMARC Quarantine Policy (DMARC Quarantine)
The Importance of DMARC Quarantine
Quarantine is the recommended stepping stone toward full DMARC enforcement. It provides real protection against spoofing (spoofed emails go to spam) while being less disruptive than reject if a legitimate email source is accidentally not authenticated. Users can still find misdelivered emails in their spam folder.
The pct tag can request a staged quarantine rollout, although receivers may still apply local policy to the remainder. Use aggregate reports and real message tests to understand impact before increasing coverage.
From the recipient's perspective, quarantined emails are in the spam folder with a note that the message failed authentication. This is visible enough to cause concern if legitimate emails are quarantined, but recoverable since the emails are not lost. This makes quarantine a good balance between security and operational safety during the DMARC deployment process.
How to Verify
A DNS health checker shows the published DMARC policy. Before moving from p=none, confirm every authorized sender through aggregate reports and real message tests. Choose any staged percentage from evidence and operational risk rather than a fixed recipe.
Check DNS Health