How to automatically remove unengaged contacts with list hygiene

Last updated: March 10, 2025

Overview

Removing contacts who are not engaging with your content is an easy way to maintain your sender reputation with great deliverability and boost engagement.

Use List Hygiene to remove contacts from specified lists after a period of email* inactivity!

*List Hygiene logic does not include SMS engagement

Before Getting Started 

In order for list hygiene to process your list, your account must have at least one list with contacts who have:

  1. Been subscribed in your Sendlane account for at least 30 days

  2. Received at least one email from your account

If you'd like to remove inactive contacts that have been in your account for less than 30 days, use segmentation. See How to remove unengaged contacts with segmentation for detailed instructions.

Smart versus automatic list hygiene

Smart list hygiene removes unengaged contacts from your list one time.

Automatic list hygiene removes unengaged contacts from your list on a schedule you determine.

Criteria for removal via list hygiene

Contacts must meet all of the following criteria to be removed from a list during list hygiene:

  1. Has been on the specified List for at least 30 days, AND

  2. Was sent an email in the specified time period, AND

  3. Did not engage (open or click) on any email in the specified time period

Run smart list hygiene 

Use Smart List Hygiene to remove contacts at one point in time rather than on an ongoing basis.

To run smart list hygiene:

  1. Open the list you want to process

  2. Click the Hygiene icon

  3. Set a number of days (between 10 and 365) contacts have to be inactive before they're removed

  4. Click Remove inactive contacts

Once the process is complete, inactive contacts will be removed from your list and you'll receive an email containing a CSV file that includes removed contacts' details.

Turn on automatic list hygiene

Use automatic list hygiene to run list hygiene on a specified ongoing interval.

To turn on automatic list hygiene

  1. Open the list you want to process

  2. Click the Hygiene icon

  3. In the pop-up window, click the Automatic tab

  4. Click the toggle to Enabled

  5. Choose a number of days of inactivity (we suggest 60)

  6. Choose a frequency for automatic list hygiene (we suggest every 14 days)

  7. Click Update Automatic Hygiene

  8. Click Proceed

Every time automatic list hygiene runs, contacts will be removed according to the unengagement settings you've specified.

Once the process is complete, inactive contacts will be removed from your list and you'll receive an email containing a CSV file that includes removed contacts' details.

Lists with list hygiene activated will show a magic wand icon:

View list hygiene history

The History tab shows the date and time of all past list hygiene processes, the number of contacts removed during each process, and the ability to download a .CSV file of the removed contacts' details or the option to restore the removed contacts to the list.

Sending to unengaged contacts can severely harm your deliverability, open rates, and sender reputation.

Be cautious when restoring contacts removed by list hygiene. Contacts who were not engaging with your content are unlikely to start engaging again.