In addition to verifying entire domains, SendOps lets you verify individual email addresses as sending identities. This is useful in specific scenarios where full domain verification is not practical or necessary.

## Email identity vs. domain verification

| | Email Identity | Domain Verification |
|---|---|---|
| **Scope** | A single email address (e.g., `alerts@example.com`) | All addresses on a domain (e.g., `*@example.com`) |
| **DNS required** | No | Yes |
| **Verification method** | SES registers the identity and verification status is checked via the API | DNS records (TXT + CNAME) |
| **Status** | Pending, Verified, or Failed | Pending, Verified, or Failed |
| **Best for** | Quick testing, domains you don't own, sandbox mode | Production sending at any scale |
| **Actions** | Refresh status, Delete | Refresh status, Delete |

### When to use email identities

- **Sandbox testing** — When your SES account is still in the [SES sandbox](/sending-email/ses-sandbox), you can quickly verify a few email addresses to start testing without configuring DNS.
- **Sending from domains you don't control** — If you need to send from an address on a domain where you cannot add DNS records (e.g., a partner's domain), you can verify just that address.
- **Quick prototyping** — Verifying an email address takes seconds rather than waiting for DNS propagation.

For production use, [domain verification](/domains/adding-a-domain) is strongly recommended. It covers every address on the domain, enables DKIM signing, and avoids the need to verify each address individually.

## Verifying an email address


  <Step title="Navigate to Identities">
    In the SendOps dashboard, open **Infrastructure** in the sidebar and select the **Identities** tab. Scroll down to the **Email Identities** section and click **Add Email Identity**.

  </Step>

  <Step title="Enter the email address">
    In the **Add Email Identity** dialog, type the full email address you want to verify (e.g., `noreply@example.com`) and click **Add Email Identity**.

    SendOps calls the SES `CreateEmailIdentity` API to register the address. After a moment, the identity appears in the Email Identities table with its current status.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Check verification status">
    The identity will appear in the Email Identities table with a status of **Pending**, **Verified**, or **Failed**. Click the **Refresh** button (refresh icon) on the identity row to re-check the verification status from SES at any time.
  </Step>



  If your SES account is still in **sandbox mode**, you must verify both the sender and every recipient address. This means you can only send to email addresses that have also been verified. See [SES Sandbox & Production](/sending-email/ses-sandbox) for details on requesting production access.


## Email Identities table

The Email Identities table on the **Identities** page displays the following columns:

| Column | Description |
|--------|-------------|
| **Email Address** | The verified email address. May show a **"New"** badge if recently discovered from AWS, or a **"Detached"** / **"Archived"** badge. |
| **Domain** | The parent domain of the email address. |
| **Status** | Current verification status (Pending, Verified, or Failed). |
| **Channel** | A dropdown to assign the identity to a [channel](/channels/understanding-channels). |
| **Actions** | **Refresh** to re-check verification status. **Archive** (for detached identities) to hide from the list. **Restore** (for archived identities) to bring back. **Delete** to permanently remove from SES. |

Archived email identities are hidden by default. Enable the **Show archived** toggle above the table to see them.

## Managing email identities

Verified email identities appear in the Email Identities section of the **Identities** page. You can:

- **View status** — See whether an identity is Pending, Verified, or Failed.
- **Refresh** — Click the **Refresh** button (refresh icon) on the identity row to re-check the current verification status from SES.
- **Archive** — Hide a detached identity from your list. You can restore it later. Archiving does not affect your SES account.
- **Restore** — Bring an archived identity back to your list.
- **Delete** — Remove an identity you no longer need. This permanently deletes the identity from your AWS SES account and from the SendOps database.
- **Assign to a channel** — Use the channel dropdown to associate the identity with a [channel](/channels/understanding-channels) for organized sending and reporting.


  The **Delete** action permanently removes the email identity from your AWS SES account, not just from SendOps. This cannot be undone. If you want to hide an identity without deleting it from SES, use **Archive** instead.


SendOps also discovers email identities automatically through [AWS Account Sync](/aws-setup/account-sync). Identities found in your SES account appear with a "New" badge and can be assigned to channels like any other identity.

## Limitations

- Email identities do not support DKIM signing unless the parent domain is also verified with DKIM records. Messages sent from an email-only identity will use the default SES signing domain.
- If you later verify the full domain, individual email identity verifications on that domain are still valid but become redundant. The domain-level verification takes precedence.

## What's next?

- Verify your full domain for production sending with [Adding a Domain](/domains/adding-a-domain).
- Learn about DNS records for DKIM, SPF, and DMARC in [DNS Configuration](/domains/dns-configuration).
- Understand SES sandbox limitations in [SES Sandbox & Production](/sending-email/ses-sandbox).