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Email Delivery
Delivery errors, problems and other topics related to getting email messages from sender to recipient.
Can I count on mail to a bad address bouncing back?
If you send email to an invalid address or a closed account, usually you'll get a bounce back. Usually. The problem is that you cannot count on bounces.
Can an email be picked up from a non-existing email address?
Email addresses are tied to domain names. It's possible that the domain name has a catch-all. I explore what that means.
Does bounced email mean all the recipients didn't get my message?
When an email message comes back to you because of a problem exactly who did or did not get the message depends on the error and where it happened.
How can a message I send by using "Reply" bounce?
Hitting Reply sends a message back to the person who sent the original, right? Not always. I'll look at how and why a Reply might actually bounce.
What does "conversation timed out" mean in an email bounce?
Occasionally email will bounce with the error "timed out". We'll look at what that does, and does not, tell us, and what might be the real problem.
What does "host name lookup failure" mean in an email bounce?
A hostname lookup failure means that the server to which your email is being sent can't be found. This could be a temporary or permanent error.
What does "relaying denied" mean?
"Relaying denied" is an obscure error you may receive in a bounce message. We'll look at what relaying is, and why it might be denied.
Why am I not getting all messages sent to the mailing list I'm on?
Mailing list messages represent a conversation between members that has a natural order. It can be very confusing when some mailing list messages arrive out of order, or not at all.
Why am I not getting the email my friend sends me?
Email can be lost in transit for a variety of reasons, but the most common explanation is spam filtering. I'll look at why that is and what you can do.
Why does email take so long to be delivered sometimes?
Counting on email being almost instant is probably a bad idea. Email is designed to tolerate many delays, and delays do happen.
Why does my laptop bounce email?
Why is my friend getting two copies of my mail?
Getting multiple copies of email is most often a problem at the receiving end. We'll look at both sending and receiving, and the most common causes.
Why is my mail to HotMail (or AOL, Yahoo, etc.) subscribers not being delivered?
Mail not being delivered is an unfortunately common problem. There's no magic answer, but I'll look at some of the reasons your mail not be delivered.
Why is some email to me delayed by days?
The email system is built to tolerate delivery delays of several days. That shouldn't happen often these days, so I'll look at what you can find out.