Wrong email always returned?

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Norm - 15 Mar 2006 22:46 GMT

Not sure where to post this....so here goes in the group of my email
client.

Question: what happens if an email is mis-addressed to a non-valid
address?

Is it always returned?

Just curious to know if (make that when ;) ) I mis-type an address and
it does not exist if it is returned.

Thanks for any info.

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Please send email to: nwhiii at yahoo dot com

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Sander Tekelenburg - 16 Mar 2006 03:34 GMT

> [...] what happens if an email is mis-addressed to a non-valid
> address?
>
> Is it always returned?

No. There is no such concept even of "returning email". In the digital
world, data isn't moved across media, it can only be copied.

If the domain name part doesn't exist, your mail server should return an
error. If only de username part doesn't exist, the receiving mail server
should return an error. Whether they actually do is probably usually the
case but not guaranteed - a mail server is just a piece of software,
configured by a human; humans make mistakes.

> Just curious to know if (make that when ;) ) I mis-type an address and
> it does not exist if it is returned.

I'd be curiouser about mis-typing into an address that *does* exist.

Don't mis-type. It's easy: type it into the Address Book without
mis-typing it, then always get the address from there.

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Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/~tekelenb/>

Mac user: "Macs only have 40 viruses, tops!"
PC user: "SEE! Not even the virus writers support Macs!"

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Norm - 16 Mar 2006 04:33 GMT

> > Just curious to know if (make that when ;) ) I mis-type an address and
> > it does not exist if it is returned.
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> Don't mis-type. It's easy: type it into the Address Book without
> mis-typing it, then always get the address from there.

Thanks for the info. Appreciate.

What prompted my question at this time is that I recently sent an email
and neglected a period in the person's name (domain was correct). I
assumed they'd received it but a few days later found out they hadn't
and I had not received any error notice.

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Please send email to: nwhiii at yahoo dot com

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Bernd Fröhlich - 16 Mar 2006 08:48 GMT

> What prompted my question at this time is that I recently sent an email
> and neglected a period in the person's name (domain was correct). I
> assumed they'd received it but a few days later found out they hadn't
> and I had not received any error notice.

That is because many mailservers do not return errors because of all the
spammers out there. If an invalid mail address would always return an
error those sick bastards (excuse my language :-) would have it too easy
to find out if an address is valid or not.

Greetings from Germany,
Bernd Fröhlich

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Sander Tekelenburg - 16 Mar 2006 18:34 GMT

> > What prompted my question at this time is that I recently sent an email
> > and neglected a period in the person's name (domain was correct). I
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> error those sick bastards (excuse my language :-) would have it too easy
> to find out if an address is valid or not.

Alternatively, it may be that the mistyped address *does* exist,
belonging to someone else. In that case there is no error to report.

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Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/~tekelenb/>

Mac user: "Macs only have 40 viruses, tops!"
PC user: "SEE! Not even the virus writers support Macs!"

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Mac Forum / Applications / Eudora / March 2006

Wrong email always returned?