How to Manage and Release Emails from Proofpoint Quarantine

Managing Proofpoint Email Quarantine

Understanding Proofpoint Email Quarantine

Proofpoint is an email security system that helps protect your organization from spam, phishing, and malicious emails. Sometimes, legitimate emails may be flagged and placed in quarantine. This article provides guidance on how to handle quarantined, blocked, or deferred emails.

What to Do When an Important Business Email is Quarantined

If you discover that an important business email has been quarantined by Proofpoint, follow these steps:

1. Contact your IT support team immediately.

2. Ask them to verify the email's legitimacy.

3. Request that they release the email from the quarantine list.

4. If the sender is a trusted contact, ask to have their email address added to a safe sender or Allow List. Adding a sender to the Proofpoint Allow List tells the filtering system to allow messages from that address, which helps prevent future legitimate emails from that sender being blocked.

Handling Blocked or Deferred Emails

When an email you've sent or are expecting to receive has been blocked by Proofpoint, or appears in Proofpoint with a status such as deferred:

1. Check the delivery alert notification, which typically provides a "View Message" option.

2. If you see a status of deferred and options to release or recover the message, use the Proofpoint interface to try to release it back to your inbox.

3. If Proofpoint prompts you to select or enter a server and you are not sure which one applies, do not guess. Look for the correct server information in your email/account settings or any mail server/tenant details provided by your organization, or contact your IT or email security administrator to confirm the correct server before proceeding.

4. If you cannot determine the correct server or you are unable to release the message yourself, contact your system administrator or IT support for assistance and ask them to release the message or provide the correct server details.

5. Request that the blocked or deferred email be marked as a "false positive" to help prevent similar blocking in the future. This is especially important if the message was sent using third-party tools or add-ins (for example, the Citrix ShareFile add‑in) and was incorrectly classified by Proofpoint as a fraudulent or phishing email.

6. In some cases, you may have options to suspend delivery alerts for 1, 3, or 24 hours while the issue is being resolved.

Releasing Emails Stuck in Quarantine

If an email is stuck in Proofpoint quarantine:

1. Try to release it directly through the Proofpoint interface by clicking the "release" or "release and approve" option (if available for that message).

2. If you see a message indicating that you must contact an administrator to take action, or if direct release doesn't work, gather specific details about the email:

   • Sender's email address

   • Email subject

   • Date and time received or shown in the quarantine digest

   • Any note that the item requires administrator action or shows a special status (such as "deferred")

   When possible, include a screenshot of the quarantine digest entry.

3. Contact your IT support team with these details for manual release or further investigation. After they confirm that the message has been released, check your inbox (and folders such as Junk or Spam) to verify you received it. Once you receive the message, carefully review it and any attachments to confirm it is legitimate. It is good practice to reply back to your IT support contact to confirm that you have received and reviewed the released email. If support encounters a problem releasing the messages, they may escalate the issue to a vendor (for example, Xamin) and will follow up with you.

Troubleshooting Email Sending Issues After Quarantine

If you're unable to send an email after a previous quarantine incident:

1. Check the Proofpoint interface for any pending alerts or blocked messages.

2. Contact your IT support or system administrator to manually release the email.

3. Ask them to investigate and report the email as a potential false positive.

4. Verify that the recipient's email address is correct.

5. Check if there are any ongoing system-wide email delivery issues.

Contact Information

For assistance with Proofpoint quarantine, blocked, or deferred message issues, please contact your organization's IT support team or system administrator.