1. I was very careful to make sure that the IP address I was assigned was not on any blacklists. 2. I don't know if it actually helped. But after setting it up

1. I was very careful to make sure that the IP address I was assigned was not on any blacklists. 2. I don't know if it actually helped. But after setting it up, I got a whole bunch of family/friends to email me from their gmail/hotmail/o365 addresses first, and then I replied to them. The theory was that gmail/hotmail wouldn't mark me as spam if their own addresses were initiating the conversation. Seemed to have worked well. I have had only one case of my email getting completely blackholed (not put in spam, just rejected outright) is when I emailed a friend with a @amd.com address. Right now, I am still using gmail for essential professional emails, but slowly getting all my online-services converted to the new email address.