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 received large quantities of spam, 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:

1. Legitmate senders who are incorrectly guessing at the correct address will have their mail returned as undeliverable.
2. The domainname owner will not receive all mail destined for any address at their domain.
3. Mail will only be delivered to addresses that have been previously defined in the control panel.