DMARC p=none vs quarantine vs reject
The DMARC p= policy tells receivers how the domain owner requests that failing messages be handled. None, quarantine and reject represent different enforcement levels.
p=none
A none policy requests monitoring rather than enforcement. Messages that fail DMARC are not requested to be quarantined or rejected solely because of the DMARC policy.
This setting is commonly useful while legitimate sending sources are being identified through reporting.
p=quarantine
A quarantine policy asks participating receivers to treat DMARC-failing mail as suspicious. The receiver ultimately decides how that request maps to filtering behavior.
This can provide an intermediate stage between monitoring and full rejection.
p=reject
A reject policy asks receivers to reject messages that fail DMARC evaluation.
Moving to reject before all legitimate sources authenticate and align correctly can affect wanted mail, so deployment should be based on observed sending evidence rather than guesswork.
Policy is not the whole DMARC record
adkim and aspf control alignment modes. rua and ruf relate to reporting. pct can scope enforcement to a percentage of affected traffic.
A DMARC checker should therefore inspect the complete record rather than only report the p= value.
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