User Guide for Quarantine and Digest

Retarus Email Security helps protect your email communication from spam, malware, phishing, and other unwanted messages.

Messages that are identified as malicious or unwanted are not delivered to your inbox. Instead, they are stored in the Retarus Email Quarantine. You receive a digest, called the Email Security Report, that lists newly quarantined messages. Emails that contain a virus are deleted immediately for security reasons, but they still appear in the digest for your information.

In the web-based Email Quarantine portal, you can review quarantined messages, release messages when permitted, and manage your personal Allowlist and Blocklist.

Email security report (digest)

The Email Security Report, also called the digest, is sent at regular intervals based on your settings. If no malicious or unwanted emails were blocked since the last report, you will not receive a digest.

The upper-right corner of the digest includes a link to the online quarantine portal, where you can:

View additional details about blocked emails
Release messages, if allowed
Manage your personal Allowlist and Blocklist

This link includes the authorization information needed to access the portal, so you do not need to enter a username or password. For security reasons, the link is valid for only two days. After that, you must request a new digest to get an updated link. For details, see Ad-hoc digest.

The digest can contain up to three sections:

Quarantined due to filter rules
Quarantined due to spam suspicion
Quarantined as threat

A section appears only when it contains messages.

Quarantined due to filter rules

The first table in the digest lists messages withheld by your organization’s filtering rules. Examples include emails blocked because of:

entries on a blocklist
maximum message size limits
failed authentication
prohibited attachment types

For definitions of quarantine reasons and classifications, see the Email Security Glossary.

Messages listed in this section can usually be released using the Retrieve link in the right column of the digest. The original email is then delivered to your inbox shortly afterward.

Quarantined due to spam suspicion

All incoming emails are checked for spam and assigned a spam probability score. Messages above the configured threshold are stored in your user quarantine and listed in this section of the digest. The default threshold is 60%, but your administrator can change it.

By default, messages in this section are sorted by spam probability in ascending order, so messages with the lowest spam probability appear first.

Messages listed in this section can usually be released using the Retrieve link in the right column of the digest. The original email is then delivered to your inbox shortly afterward.

Quarantined as threat

For security reasons, dangerous messages are listed separately in this section. This includes:

virus-infected emails
phishing emails
emails classified as fraud attempts

Virus-infected emails are rejected or deleted automatically. They are listed for reference only and cannot be released.

Phishing emails and emails classified as fraud attempts may be releasable by default, but you should proceed with extreme caution and review the details carefully in the online quarantine portal first.

📌 If you are unsure, contact your administrator or help desk before releasing any email in this section.

Ad-hoc digest

You can request an ad-hoc digest at any time instead of waiting for the next scheduled digest. This is useful when:

You need a new valid access link to the online quarantine.
You are returning from vacation or a longer absence.
You want one report that covers a broader time range.

To receive the latest digest from an existing digest email, click the link for the required time span at the end of the message. You can request a report for the last 2 days or 30 days.

You can also request a digest directly by email. Send an email to digest@qstore.retarus.com with the subject digest30, where 30 is the number of days you want to include. You will receive the new digest shortly.

Email Quarantine portal

Regardless of the digest interval, the online quarantine portal lets you review and, when allowed, release intercepted messages for a defined retention period. By default, messages remain available for 30 days.

📌 Messages cannot be released if they were rejected or deleted, for example, because they contained a virus.

To open the portal, click Show messages in online quarantine portal in your digest. Because the access link is valid for only two days, use the most recent digest whenever possible.

If you do not have a current digest, you can request one by sending an email to digest@qstore.retarus.com with the subject digest30, where 30 is the number of days you want to include.

When you open the quarantine portal, messages are displayed with the newest emails first.

If you access the portal from a mobile device, a mobile-optimized view is displayed.

Search and filters

You can search for emails by sender or subject using the search bar at the top of the page.

Use the FILTERS area to refine the results list. Additional filters include:

date range
attachment status
spam probability
classification

The date picker appears at the top of the filters area, above the other filters. It displays the currently selected date range and the message Select any date range within the last 60 days from today.

In Attachment filter, you can choose:

No filters (All Emails) to show all emails, whether they include attachments or not.
With Attachments to show only emails that include one or more attachments.
Without Attachments to show only emails that do not include attachments.

In Classification, you can filter emails by message type. Available options include All and predefined classifications such as Newsletter, Phishing, or Spam.

Select Apply to update the results list with your selected filters. To clear your filter selections, select Reset to default.

Below the filters area, you can see the total number of matching emails and the number of hidden emails. Use the Show hidden toggle to include hidden emails in the results list.

Message actions

When you point to a message, action icons appear on the right. Depending on your permissions and the message type, you can:

hide the email
release the email
download the email as an .eml file for further analysis
add the sender to your personal Allowlist
add the sender to your personal Blocklist

The options for maintaining a personal Allowlist or Blocklist are available only if your administrator has enabled them for you.

Message details

Select a quarantined email to view more details.

From the details page, you can also release or download the email and add the sender to your personal Allowlist or Blocklist.

Use the Advanced toggle to display additional information, such as the Envelope-From address.

Allowlist & Blocklist

If your administrator has enabled personal list management, you can manage your personal Allowlist and Blocklist directly in the Email Quarantine portal.

Your administrator can also access these lists to help prevent accidental blocking or unblocking.

Supported entry formats

The Allowlist and Blocklist support the same entry formats:

full email addresses, such as example@mydomain.com
domains, such as mydomain.com
domain entries with @, such as @mydomain.com
wildcard-style domain entries, such as *@mydomain.com

The Add single entry dialog includes examples of supported formats. The Add multiple entries field also includes placeholder text with supported domain examples.

Allowlist

This option is visible only if you are allowed to maintain a personal Allowlist and Blocklist. The Allowlist contains senders whose emails are delivered regardless of the calculated spam probability.

To delete an entry, select the delete icon ( ) next to that entry.

To add one entry:

Select Add single entry ( ).
Enter a supported email address or domain.
Click Add Entry.

To add multiple entries at the same time:

Select Add multiple entries ( ).
Enter two or more email addresses or domains, separated by commas.
Click Next to review the list of entries.
Click Next again to add the entries to your Allowlist.

This is useful when importing a list from a text file, such as a file exported from Outlook.

📌 If the same sender or domain appears in both the Allowlist and the Blocklist, the Allowlist takes precedence. Emails from that sender are delivered.

Blocklist

The Blocklist contains sender email addresses or domains whose messages are quarantined instead of being delivered.

You can add and delete entries in the same way as in the Allowlist.

Managing large lists

The Allowlist and Blocklist include tools that make larger lists easier to manage.

Lists are displayed with pagination. You can:

View the total number of entries
Select how many entries to display per page
Choose from 5, 10, 25, or 100 entries per page
Navigate to the first, previous, next, or last page

Sorting

You can sort entries alphabetically. Select the sort icon ( ) to change the sort order:

Click once to sort in ascending order (A → Z).
Click again to sort in descending order (Z → A).

Entries are sorted in ascending order by default.

Search by value

You can search Allowlist and Blocklist entries by value. A Search by value field appears above the list.

Type any value in the field and click Enter. The result count shows either X entries found or No entries found.

User settings

Select the green button in the upper-right corner, which displays the user’s initials, to open the user menu.

From there, you can:

View the email address for the current quarantine account
Log out
Manage your digest settings

📌 Independent of your digest settings, quarantined emails are stored only for a limited time before they are deleted automatically. By default, the retention period is 30 days.