What happens if…
We believe in being clear up front. Here's exactly what happens in the edge cases people worry about — your mailbox fills up, your account lapses, your domain expires. No surprises, no buried fine print.
Quick links: Storage full · Account lapses · Domain breaks · You leave · What we will not do
Scenario 1 — Your mailbox or pool fills up
Short version: new mail keeps trying to reach you for up to 5 days. You and your admin both get notified. Nothing is lost unless you ignore it.
The full sequence:
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| At 80% of your storage | You get an email: "you're at 80% — consider tidying up." Banner in the inbox. |
| At 95% | Email + banner escalate. Admin sees it on the team-storage page. If auto-reup is on, we charge for the next storage increment and the limit goes up automatically. |
| At 100% | New mail is not bounced. Senders' mail servers are told "deferred — try again later" (technical: SMTP 4xx). They retry every few minutes for up to 5 days. We notify you and your admin every few hours. |
| Within those 5 days, if you free space (clean up, add personal storage, admin upgrades the pool, or auto-reup fires) | Queued mail flows through automatically. No data lost. |
| After 5 days with no resolution | Senders' servers bounce the mail back to them with a clear message ("The recipient's mailbox is full"). |
Important: existing mail in your account is not affected when you hit your limit. We don't delete anything to make room. The cap affects only incoming, until you act.
Recovery options:
- Use the cleanup wizard in your inbox (Settings → Tidy up) — surfaces your heaviest senders, biggest attachments, oldest threads
- Your admin can reallocate company pool space to your mailbox
- Add personal storage (charged to your own card, doesn't come from the company pool)
- Your admin can buy more pool capacity at
/admin/team-storage - Enable auto-reup so this never happens silently again
Scenario 2 — Your account lapses or is canceled
The "what happens to incoming mail when the tenant stops paying" question.
Outgoing mail: stops within minutes once you cross into the grace banner state. Your mailboxes can no longer send through Talking Unicorn.
Incoming mail: depends on what state your account is in:
| Account state | What happens to incoming mail | How long this state lasts |
|---|---|---|
| Payment failed (e.g. card declined) | Mail still accepted normally. We retry the payment. | 14-day grace period |
| Grace period expired | Mail still accepted, but you'll see "renew now" banners and outgoing send is disabled. | Another 14 days |
| Suspended (final stage of unpaid) | Incoming mail is deferred — senders are told "try again later." Same SMTP 4xx mechanism as Scenario 1. | 30 days |
| Scheduled for deletion | Incoming mail is rejected with a clear bounce ("mailbox closed"). Last 24h before hard delete. | 24 hours |
| Canceled (closed by you or after 30 days suspended) | Incoming mail bounces with a clear message ("This address is no longer active. Contact the sender directly.") | Final state |
Your data:
| When | What happens to your existing data |
|---|---|
| Day 0 of suspension | Nothing. All your mail, PDFs, knowledge base, CRM connections — all intact and viewable when you log in to renew. |
| Days 1–60 after suspension | Data preserved. You can renew anytime and pick up exactly where you left off. |
| Days 61–90 | We send 3 final warning emails ("90 days — your data will be permanently deleted on YYYY-MM-DD"). |
| Day 90 | Your mailboxes, PDFs, knowledge base, and CRM tokens are permanently deleted. We retain only what we're legally required to retain (billing records, abuse logs). |
Want to retrieve your data before deletion? Anytime in the 90 days, log in and use Data Export (Settings → Export). You'll get a downloadable archive of your mailboxes (mbox format), PDFs, and CRM connection history.
Note: the 90-day deletion timeline is shorter for tenants in regions with stricter data-minimization rules (e.g. EU's GDPR encourages earlier deletion). We default to the safe longer window globally.
Scenario 3 — Your domain expires or DNS breaks
Different from your account lapsing. This is when your domain stops working — registration expires, MX records point somewhere else, etc.
What we see: mail keeps arriving at our servers (the MX record is cached at sender mail servers for hours-to-days). We deliver it to your mailboxes normally. If and when senders' DNS caches refresh and your MX no longer points to us, they stop sending.
What senders see depends on what happens to your domain's DNS:
| Your DNS state | What senders experience |
|---|---|
| MX still points at us | Mail flows through normally — we deliver it. |
| MX repointed elsewhere | Their server routes to wherever the new MX points. We don't see the mail. |
| Domain expired (no DNS at all) | Their server gets a DNS resolution failure. Their mail bounces back to them with "domain not found." |
| Domain repurchased by someone else | If the new owner sets up mail, they get your incoming mail. (This is why don't-let-your-domain-expire is universally good advice.) |
Your data with us is unaffected by your domain's DNS state. You can still log in to Talking Unicorn (we authenticate by mailbox username + password, not by DNS) and access all your mail, PDFs, and CRM data. Re-pointing your MX back to us restores normal delivery within a few hours of DNS propagation.
If you let both your domain and your subscription lapse: see Scenario 2 — your subscription state drives the deletion timeline. Your domain expiry only affects mail flow, not your account status.
Scenario 4 — You leave (and want to leave cleanly)
The reverse: you've decided to move off Talking Unicorn. Here's the cleanest path.
- Before you cancel: export your data. Settings → Export. You get an archive with mailboxes in mbox format (importable into Gmail, Outlook, Fastmail, anywhere standard) + PDF Vault + CRM connection history.
- Re-point your MX to your new mail provider. Allow 24–72h for DNS propagation. During this window, both we and your new provider may receive mail; this is normal and unavoidable.
- Cancel your subscription via
/admin/billing. We do not immediately delete data — Scenario 2's 90-day window applies, giving you time to make sure nothing was missed. - At the 90-day mark: all your data is deleted from our systems.
If you want immediate deletion before 90 days, hit the "Delete my data now" button on the cancellation page. We'll send a confirmation email; once you confirm, we permanently delete within 24 hours and email you when complete.
What we will NOT do
- Bounce incoming mail immediately when you hit a storage limit (we defer-then-bounce only after 5 days, giving you time to react)
- Delete your data without notice (Scenario 2's 60+30 day warning window)
- Hold your data hostage to extract a renewal — Data Export is always available, even during the suspension and grace periods
- Sell or share your mail or AI training data with third parties (covered separately in our Privacy Policy)
- Continue billing you after you've canceled (cancellation is immediate; we prorate refunds where the law requires)
What you can do at any time
- Export your data (Settings → Export)
- View your storage status (
/settings/storage— own mailbox;/admin/team-storage— admin view) - See which CRMs are connected and disconnect them (
/settings/integrations) - Disable AI features tenant-wide (
/admin/uni-settings) - Request immediate data deletion (Settings → Delete my data)
- Contact us at hello@talkingunicorn.email or use the support page
This page describes our operational behavior in plain language. It is summarized in legalese in our Terms of Service and Refund Policy. If anything here ever conflicts with those documents, this page is the source of truth for what Talking Unicorn actually does.