Any way not to bounce "550 5.1.1 <email@domain.com> User doesn't exist:" when only forwarder exists?

simz8

• February 16, 2024 10:51

Hello,

currently my setting for default address is "discard"  (blackhole).

Nevertheless when someone sends an email to an email address that only has a forwarder or forwarders to existing addresses, then a bounce goes back to him "550 5.1.1 <email@domain.com> User doesn't exist" 

Is there any way to avoid this?

• 

  cPRex Jurassic Moderator

  • February 16, 2024 12:48

  Hey there!  Yes, if you click the "Advanced Options" button on the page and choose the "Discard (not recommended) option, that won't send any type of bounceback to the user.

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  simz8

  • February 16, 2024 12:51

  Hey cPRex
  I have already this option enabled as i mention at my first post. 
  It works properly when there is no such email address. 

  BUT when there is the address only as forwarders it still bounces back. Is that normal behavior?

  Thank you.

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  cPRex Jurassic Moderator

  • February 16, 2024 12:52

  Yes, if the address exists in any way that would not apply to this tool as this is only controlling unroutable messages.

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  mtindor

  • February 16, 2024 13:41

  These two options can be confusing (and shouldn't be):

   

  Discard the email while your server processes it by SMTP time with an error message.

  Failure Message (seen by sender)

   

  The one above should be worded something like "Reject during SMTP time with an error message".   And this should be the one used if one wants to reject incoming mail to nonexistent email accounts/forwarders.   This rejects the message during SMTP time and leaves the burden on the sending server to alert the sender that the message could not be sent.

   

   Discard (Not Recommended) 

   

  This means accept the message and discard / delete the incoming email.   This shouldn't even exist.    Rejecting during SMTP is so much more efficient and never results in a bounce/undeliverable/NDR from the recipient server.

   

  CPREX:   The OP is suggesting that he has a forwarder set up (example:  bob -->  bobdog@somedomain.ext) but does not have an email account of "bob" set up.   Should be no issue.   Regardless of the 'default address' setting, "bob" exists as a forwarder and there should be no bounce message -- one would think.   But there is a scenario where perhaps there would be a bounce sent back.

   

  Simz8:   example - bob is forwarded to bobdog@somedomain.ext.    Somebody sends an email to bob, and that gets forwarded to bobdog@somedomain.ext.    The somedomain.ext server says "no, we aren't going to accept this message, during the SMTP session that is doing the forwarding to bob@somedomain.txt".    the cPanel server has no choice at that point to send a bounce back to the original sender letting them know that the message that was sent to bob and forwarded to bobdog@somedomain.ext was not accepted by somedomain.ext (because the user doesn't exist, because it fails DMARC, because it is SPAM, etc).

   

  So if you have a forwarder in place, whether you have an actually email account associated with the forwarder or not, if the server where the email is being forwarded to doesn't acccept the forwarded message for some reason, the cpanel server is going to send a bounce back to the sender (as it should).

   

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