Why a message was held

A held message scored above the delivery threshold. The most common reason by far is failed authentication — the sending domain published SPF or DMARC and the message did not satisfy it, which is exactly the case those records exist to catch.

If you were expecting it, the sender usually has a configuration problem worth telling them about: a newsletter tool sending as their domain without being listed in their SPF record, most often.

Held mail is not deleted. It is recoverable, and marking something as wanted feeds back into how similar messages are scored for your mailbox.