Emails sometimes don't reach the person they're sent to. This is known as a "bounce." There are two kinds of bounces:
- Soft Bounces: These happen when there's a small issue, like the person's email box is full or their email server is down temporarily.
- Hard Bounces: These happen when there's a larger issue, like the email address is wrong or doesn't exist.
Email services are good at figuring out when an email bounces. They watch for messages from the person's email server that indicate the email didn't go through. This helps identify if it's a soft or hard bounce and what to do next.
Sometimes, email services don't give out details about bounced emails. This is mainly to protect the person's privacy and to stop bad actors from misusing this information.
The primary reasons for blocking or limiting this information are as follows:
- Email addresses and details about why an email bounced can be private. Giving these details to the sender could risk the person's privacy or security.
- Bad actors might use details about bounced emails to figure out which emails are real. They could then send more spam or try to trick people into revealing private information.
- There are internet bots that look for email addresses. They could use details about bounced emails to confirm that an email address is real, which could lead to more spam.
- Email services want to make sure senders aren't sending too many emails that bounce. If they gave out too many details about bounced emails, senders might try to get around this.
Instead of giving out details about each bounced email, email services usually give a general overview of how many emails bounced. This helps senders know how well they're doing without risking people's privacy.