Catch-all mailbox
A catch-all mailbox collects messages sent to addresses that do not exist under your domain — for example, mail addressed to [email protected] when there is no sales mailbox. Mail sent to addresses that do exist is unaffected and is delivered to those mailboxes as usual.
The catch-all is set per domain, and the mailbox you select must already exist.
Setting a catch-all mailbox
- Go to the Mail Manager section.
- Open the Catch-all tab.
- Select the Domain and the Catch-all mailbox.
- Click Save.
Removing the catch-all mailbox
Select N/A in the Catch-all mailbox list and save.
Once no catch-all is set, messages to non-existent addresses are rejected at delivery time and the sender receives a "no such user" bounce, so nothing is silently lost.
Features that cannot be enabled for the catch-all mailbox
While a mailbox is set as the catch-all, the following cannot be enabled for it:
- Email forwarding
- SpamAssassin
- Antivirus protection
- Autoresponder (automatic reply)
This restriction is imposed for security and performance reasons: a catch-all mailbox receives mail for every possible address at your domain, so features that act on each incoming message would run on unlimited amounts of unsolicited mail.
In the mailbox list, these options show as N/A for the catch-all mailbox. To use any of them on that particular mailbox, first remove the catch-all setting from it — or select a different mailbox as the catch-all.
Mailbox filters and the Junk folder are not affected and continue to work normally; only the SpamAssassin spam score is unavailable.
The mailbox I want to use is not in the list
The Catch-all mailbox list only offers mailboxes that have no forwarding and no autoresponder enabled, for the reason above. If the mailbox you want is missing from the list, open its settings, turn off its forwarding and autoresponder, and it will become selectable.
Before you set a catch-all — points to consider
- A catch-all attracts spam. Spammers routinely send to guessed addresses such as
info@,admin@or random strings at your domain. Without a catch-all those messages are rejected outright; with one, they are all delivered to a real mailbox — and, as explained above, without SpamAssassin scoring or antivirus scanning. - Watch the mailbox quota. The catch-all is an ordinary mailbox and has the same quota. If it fills up, incoming mail to it starts bouncing.
- Consider creating the addresses you actually need instead. Any mailbox you create stops falling through to the catch-all, and it can use forwarding, autoresponders, SpamAssassin and antivirus normally.
- Consider subaddressing if your goal is one mailbox reachable under many addresses. It gives you unlimited
[email protected]variants that all arrive in[email protected], with none of these restrictions.
