Checking files by e-mail

You can have a CSN, an ICEGATE acknowledgement or a structural-failure response checked without opening SCMTR: send it to the checking address as an attachment, and the full check comes back as a reply. This page covers what to send, what comes back, how to have ICEGATE's replies checked automatically, and why a reply might not come.

Where do I send a file to be checked?

The checking address is shown on your CSN filing page and in Settings, under Checking by e-mail. Where checking by e-mail is not switched on, neither page shows it. It takes files to check — a CSN, a manifest, an ACK. Bills of lading to be drafted from go to a different address, under Bills by e-mail (Bills by e-mail).

Attach the .json file itself — not a screenshot, and not its text pasted into the message.Up to five files in one e-mail, each up to 1 MB — room for any forwarder's CSN. A shipping line's export CSN for a whole vessel can be larger (one was 2.1 MB); drop that on SCMTR JSON upload in the app, which checks a CSN up to 3 MB.Send from the address you sign in with. That is how the report knows whose it is. To send from anywhere else — including a forwarding rule — use your own checking address (below).Thirty files a day per account. Past that, the files are not checked and one reply a day says so; the rest can go tomorrow, or straight onto SCMTR JSON upload in the app, which has no daily limit.

A message larger than 15 MB, or built of a very large number of pieces — a long forwarded thread with every earlier message's signature images, typically — is not opened at all. You get a short reply asking you to attach the .json files directly to a new e-mail.

Can I reply to a report with another file?

No. A reply to a report goes to a person on our team, not to the checking address, so a file attached to it is not checked. Send files as a new e-mail to the checking address. Replying is the right thing to do only when you want to ask us something about the report.

What comes back?

For each file, the same check SCMTR JSON upload gives: the verdict, every problem customs would refuse, where it sits in the filing, and how to fix it.

A CSN and its acknowledgement in the same e-mail are read together

If you attach the CSN you filed and the acknowledgement ICEGATE sent for it, the two are read together, and each error in the acknowledgement names the value sitting in your own file — "this container is 40 and the CSN it refers to has 20", rather than "check the container size". This is the single most useful thing to send, and it is why the report may ask for the other file when you send only one.

They are read together only when they are the same transmission: the same control number, the same job and the same sender. When the reply is for a different transmission of the same consignment — the commonest case being a filing refused, corrected and sent again under a new job number — the report says which file answers which job, and reads neither against the other. When ICEGATE answered one transmission twice, refused and then accepted, the acceptance is the one read with the CSN.

Which of your filings it answers

For an acknowledgement, the report says which of your organisation's filings it answers, and why it thinks so. When it cannot be sure — the only match is a shared master bill of lading, which more than one filing can carry — it offers the filing rather than asserting it. When no filing in SCMTR answers to it, it says so: that filing was made somewhere else, on the ICEGATE portal or in other software.

What to do now, and a button to do it

Each acknowledgement's report ends with one to three steps, and a button that opens the screen those steps talk about:

Following the link never records or creates anything. A link in an e-mail can be opened by a mail scanner or a preview pane without you, so every screen it opens waits for you to press its own button. Each link works once, for 24 hours.

The steps are different for an amendment or a deletion, because a refused amendment was simply not applied — the filing stays accepted — and an amendment is corrected by sending it again as an amendment, never by filing the cargo afresh. A filing a colleague created is theirs, or an organisation admin's, to record; and a draft kept in SCMTR that was filed somewhere else is recorded with Record a filing made elsewhere, which takes the file that was filed.

ICEGATE refused my file by e-mail, and there is no file to attach

Some refusals never produce an acknowledgement — ICEGATE sends a short e-mail instead. Forward that e-mail to the checking address. The reply recognises these, in ICEGATE's own words, and says what each means and what to do:

"The Control Number has already been processed""DSC validation failed" or "DSC Failed"a file that "failed due to UTF-8 encoding validation", or is "not UTF-8 encoded""User not Authorized""Something went wrong", where the e-mail is plainly from ICEGATE

The reply quotes the line it recognised, so you can see what was read. Where the e-mail names a job number beside the refusal, the reply also says which of your filings it is. An e-mail that says "Header validation failed" followed by some other wording is not guessed at: that phrase comes before more than one cause. What each of these refusals means is set out in Reading an acknowledgement.

Can ICEGATE's replies be checked automatically?

Yes, with your own checking address. The shared address knows who sent a message from its From, and an automatically forwarded message still carries ICEGATE's From, not yours — so the shared address cannot tell it is yours and does not answer it. Your own address can.

In Settings, under Checking by e-mail, press Get my own checking address. It looks like the shared address with a plus sign and a string of letters and numbers after its first part.In your mail system, add a forwarding rule that sends ICEGATE's mail to that address.Every file that arrives there is checked, and the report always comes to you — to the address on your account — never to whoever sent it.

Gmail will not forward to a new address until that address confirms it. The confirmation Gmail sends comes back to you as a report titled "Confirm your forwarding rule", with Gmail's own code and link in it; use those. If you did not set up a rule, ignore it: nothing is forwarded until someone confirms.

Microsoft 365 organisations often block automatic forwarding to addresses outside the organisation unless an administrator allows it. If a rule seems to do nothing, that is the first thing to check with whoever runs your mail.

Treat your own address like a password

Anything sent to it is checked whoever sends it, so somebody who has it could use up your thirty checks a day and send you files that look like ICEGATE's. They can never read anything back. To keep that safe:

A report of anything that arrived at your own address starts by saying who sent it, and that nobody verified that sender. Make sure a file is one you expected before you record anything from it.Its button always opens the checker, never a filing ready to record or a wizard ready to create one, so nothing sent there can become a one-click change to a filing.Get a new address stops the old one at once, and every forwarding rule pointed at it with it — so the page asks before it does. Turn it off stops it without a replacement. Mail sent to an old address afterwards is not answered.Staff acting as you in SCMTR cannot see it, get one for you, or change it.If somebody leaves your organisation, change any shared forwarding rule that points at their own address. The address belongs to that person, not to the organisation.

What happens to the files and e-mails I send?

Files sent to the checking address are checked and, since 17 September 2026, kept for two years, like every file uploaded to SCMTR. Each is also held so its link can open it — once, within 24 hours. Your e-mail itself stays in the checking mailbox until that mailbox's retention setting deletes it after 30 days. The text of an e-mail with no file attached is read, and not kept, only to recognise one of ICEGATE's refusals, Gmail's forwarding confirmation, or one of our own reports forwarded back. What is kept, and for how long, is in the privacy policy.

Why did nothing come back?

You sent from an address with no SCMTR account. You get one short note a week about signing up, rather than a report.Your mail provider does not vouch for the address you sent from. A report goes back to the address a message came from, so a message that cannot be shown to really come from that address is not answered at all — otherwise anyone could have reports sent to you. Send from the address you sign in with, or use your own checking address.It was an automatic message — an out-of-office, a bounce, a mailing list — or it carried one of our own reports back with no file attached. These are not answered, so that two mail systems cannot answer each other for ever.You have sent thirty files today. One reply says so; after that, nothing more today.It went to an old personal address, after you got a new one or turned it off.It is still on its way. The checking mailbox is read about once a minute, a few messages at a time, so a busy moment can take a few minutes.

If none of those fits, use the feedback button inside the app and say when you sent it and from which address.