Buttondown Documentation
As a helpful primer for the diagram below, here's a quick run-through.
(Transactional emails are intentionally omitted from the diagram above, as they don't enter the workflow at all.)
That is, obviously, a lot to take in. If you're just trying to understand for the first time how emails move through the workflow, here's a simplified diagram with some edge cases removed:
Represents the state of an email.
No action is required to move from one state or another; Buttondown internally handles the transitions, and exposing the status is for observability purposes only.
Draft emails are only visible to you and are not sent out to subscribers.
This email has been queued to send out to subscribers, and will be sent automatically within a few minutes.
If you're seeing that an email you just sent out is 'stuck' here, worry not — Buttondown sometimes takes a little bit longer to send out emails to ensure deliverability, but once it's marked as 'about to send' it will get sent out.
This email has been scheduled to send out to subscribers at a specific time. This specific time is available on the email as its publish_date
.
This email is currently being sent out to subscribers, and is visible in your web archives if enabled.
Some emails, especially those with large subscriber lists, may take a while to send out — Buttondown sends emails out in batches to ensure deliverability, so if you're seeing an email 'stuck' here, it's because our systems have detected that that's the optimal way to reach your subscribers.
This email was imported from another service, and is visible in your web archives if enabled.
This email was created by an external feed, and has not yet been finalized and sent out by Buttondown.
This email has been deleted, and is no longer visible in your web archives.
This email has been paused, and is not visible in your web archives.
This email has been sent out to subscribers, and is visible in your web archives if enabled.
This email has encountered an error while sending out to subscribers, and is not visible in your web archives.
This email is in the process of being sent out, but is being intentionally sent slowly to ensure deliverability.
This email is in the process of automatically being resent to subscribers by Buttondown's systems in order to make sure all subscribers have received it.
This email is a transactional email used by a core workflow in your newsletter or Automations, and is not visible in your web archives nor sent out to subscribers.