Why do my first emails only go to me?

Every new NevarMail organization starts in test mode, which restricts sends to an allow-listed set of recipients — and during onboarding, the safe-send step goes further and locks the recipient to you, the signed-in user, so your very first email cannot reach anyone else by accident. If a test email "didn't arrive" for a friend or teammate, this is almost always why: it arrived, just not to them.

What is test mode?

Test mode is a per-organization (and per-use-case) setting that limits who a send can reach. While it's on, NevarMail checks every recipient against your test lists and your account's allowed test emails before it will hand the message to your provider. Anyone not on one of those lists is blocked — the send is rejected, not silently dropped, and not billed as a real send (see What counts as a "test" send below).

Test mode is resolved with test-key sends as a floor that nothing can override: if you're sending with a test API key, the send is a test send no matter what your account or use case is set to. Above that floor, each use case can carry its own mode, and if it doesn't, it inherits your organization's default. This is set up so a single test-mode API key can never accidentally reach real recipients, even in an otherwise live organization.

Why does onboarding lock the recipient to me?

Onboarding's safe-send step is deliberately stricter than test mode alone: the request to send your first email doesn't accept a recipient field at all. NevarMail resolves it server-side from your own signed-in account and ignores anything else the request might try to specify. This is on purpose — the first email anyone sends from a brand-new organization should be provably safe to send, with no way to fat-finger a real customer's address into it.

What happens if I try to send to someone else in test mode?

The send is rejected before it reaches your provider, with a message telling you the recipient isn't in your test lists. Nothing is delivered, and nothing is charged as a billable send.

Does a test send count against my usage?

Test sends are tracked separately from your billable usage. They show up under their own metric so you and NevarMail can both see that your test traffic isn't idle, but that metric is never read by billing — a test send costs you nothing.

How do I add more test recipients?

Go to Settings → Safety to manage your test lists and allowed test emails. Add addresses there (like a teammate's inbox, or a shared QA address) and they'll be allowed to receive sends while your organization or use case stays in test mode.

How do I turn test mode off?

From Settings → Safety, toggle send mode from test to production for your organization, or set an individual use case to production if you want only that use case live while the rest of your organization stays in test. Production mode removes the test-list restriction — every send is expected to reach a real recipient, so make sure your sending domain is verified first.

Turning test mode off is not gated on a domain. What is: onboarding's own send step refuses to send while a domain you registered in onboarding is still unverified (a clear error rather than unauthenticated mail), and a managed account is blocked on every send until its domain is authenticated.

Can I flip back to test mode any time?

Yes, with one guardrail: NevarMail won't flip your organization (or a use case) from production back to test while your provider is still holding a scheduled campaign for it. A scheduled send happens on your provider's own clock, outside of NevarMail, so switching modes here can't stop or hide it — NevarMail refuses the flip and names the pending campaigns so you can handle them first.

Related pages

• Domains — verify your sending domain before going live.
• Unsubscribes and compliance — what happens once you're sending to real recipients.
• Sending email — the send API itself.