The catch-all mailbox
The catch-all mailbox was a useful feature of many hosting accounts which permitted a single mailbox to receive mail addressed to sales@, info@, feedback@, support@ etc - in fact to any address - without explicitly defining these addresses in the control panel.
However, even with a good spam filter, a catch-all mailbox caused large quantities of spam to end up in the domainname owner's mailbox, as spammers regularly send to predictable addresses such as those above, and also bob@domain.com, jane@domain.com, fred@domain.com etc.
Consequently, on all our hosting accounts, the catch-all mailbox feature has now been permanently disabled. This means that messages to undefined addresses will no longer be delivered. This means less spam, however it also means the following:
- Legitmate senders who are incorrectly guessing at the correct address will have their mail returned.
- The domainname owner will not receive all mail destined for any address at their domain.
- Mail will only be delivered to addresses that are explicitly defined in the control panel.
