Sunset policy
A standing rule that stops mailing people who have ignored you for months, before their silence drags your reputation down.
See it
What it is
A written rule, applied automatically, that stops mail to people who have shown no sign of life for a set window. The window scales with your cadence: a daily sender might sunset at 90 days of silence, a monthly newsletter at 12 months. The usual shape is a ramp rather than a cliff. Cut frequency, send a short win-back sequence, then move the address to suppression and stop.
The reason is selfish, not tidy. Dormant addresses drag your engagement metrics down for everyone else on the list, and abandoned accounts get recycled by providers into spam traps, which is a much more expensive problem than a smaller list. Sending less to fewer people usually raises inbox placement for the people who still want you.
Gotcha: do not define 'inactive' by opens alone. Apple Mail Privacy Protection inflates opens for some people and image blocking hides them for others, so build the rule on clicks, replies, logins, and purchases with opens as a weak tiebreaker. And exempt transactional mail: a receipt or password reset goes out no matter how long someone has ignored your newsletter.
Ask AI for it
Draft a sunset policy for my email program and implement it. Define activity as any click, reply, site login, or purchase, with opens as a weak signal only. Stage it: at 90 days inactive drop to monthly, at 120 days send a two-email win-back asking them to click to stay, at 150 days move the address to the suppression list and stop marketing mail entirely. Transactional mail is exempt at every stage. Give me the policy as a short document plus a nightly job that moves subscribers between stages and logs every transition.