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Catch-all email verification

Get a real answer on catch-all emails

Most verifiers mark catch-all addresses as “accept-all” and leave the decision to you. Truelist goes further and resolves many of them to a definitive valid or invalid result, so you can keep the real people and drop the dead mailboxes.

Check if a domain is catch-all See pricing

What is a catch-all email?

A catch-all email (also called accept-all) is an address on a domain whose mail server accepts messages for every address, whether or not the mailbox exists. Send to anything@company.com and the server says yes.

Companies set this up so mail to a misspelled name or a former employee still reaches someone. The side effect is that the server no longer tells verifiers which mailboxes are real. Messages to addresses that don’t exist may be silently dropped, or bounce minutes later and count against your sender reputation.

That matters most in B2B, where catch-all domains are common. A list with a large share of unresolved catch-alls can raise your bounce rate enough to hurt your sender reputation or get your account paused by your email service. More on how catch-all servers work.

How it works

How Truelist verifies catch-all addresses

An SMTP check alone can’t see past a catch-all server. Enhanced validation adds other signals and runs only where the standard check comes back uncertain.

  1. 1. Standard check first

    Every address gets the usual syntax, domain, MX and mailbox checks. Standard validation costs 1 credit per email with a definitive verdict. A result that stays unresolved is not charged.

  2. 2. Enhanced validation on the uncertain ones

    Addresses that come back catch-all or unknown go through enhanced validation, which cross-checks third-party data sources and extra heuristics instead of relying on the SMTP reply alone.

  3. 3. A confidence score when the result has one

    Definite results score 100. Catch-all and unknown addresses that enhanced validation checks score from 0 to 95, so you can set a sending threshold for those. Uncertain results enhanced validation did not check, and results from before scoring launched, have no score.

  4. 4. Re-verify in one click

    If you verified a list with the standard check, lists and reports flag the uncertain results enhanced validation could still resolve. Re-verify just those in one click, without re-uploading.

Tuned for the providers behind most catch-all and unknown results

  • Google Workspace
  • Microsoft 365 and other Microsoft-hosted domains
  • Yahoo, AOL and Hotmail

Enhanced validation resolves many catch-all addresses, not all of them. Those it can’t resolve stay marked as catch-all, and you aren’t charged the enhanced rate for them.

What it costs

Standard validation
1 credit per email with a definitive verdict
Catch-all resolved
3 credits, only when enhanced validation reaches a definitive verdict
Catch-all not resolved
No enhanced charge

Want to try it first? The free email checker on our home page runs enhanced validation on single addresses.

What to do with catch-alls that stay unresolved

  • Separate them from verified addresses

    Keep unresolved catch-alls in their own segment so one bad batch can’t drive up the bounce rate of the rest of your list.

  • Send in small batches first

    Start with a few hundred, watch hard bounces for a day, and only scale up if the bounce rate stays well under 2%.

  • Prefer people with a reason to hear from you

    A catch-all address that signed up, replied or bought from you is far safer than one scraped or bought on a list.

  • Suppress on the first hard bounce

    A catch-all server can accept a message and bounce it minutes later, once its internal routing finds no mailbox. Remove an address as soon as it bounces.

Related

Frequently asked questions

Can't find the answer you're looking for? Reach out to our customer support team.

What is a catch-all email?
A catch-all (or accept-all) email is an address on a domain whose mail server accepts messages for any address, whether or not that mailbox exists. The server says yes during delivery, then may drop, forward or bounce the message later.
Why can’t normal verifiers check catch-all addresses?
Most verifiers ask the recipient’s mail server whether a mailbox exists. A catch-all server answers yes for every address, so the check can’t tell a real person from a typo. That’s why those addresses come back as accept-all, risky or unknown.
How does Truelist verify catch-all emails?
Truelist runs the standard SMTP check first. When the domain is catch-all or the result is unknown, enhanced validation cross-references third-party data sources and additional heuristics to reach a definitive valid or invalid verdict where it can. It works best on business domains hosted on Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, and on Yahoo, AOL and Hotmail addresses that often come back unknown.
How much does catch-all verification cost?
Standard validation costs 1 credit per email with a definitive verdict. Enhanced validation costs 3 credits, and only when it reaches a definitive verdict. If an address stays unresolved, enhanced validation costs nothing.
Can every catch-all address be resolved?
No. Enhanced validation resolves many catch-all addresses, but not all of them. Some domains give no usable signal. Those stay marked as catch-all, and you decide whether to send to them in small batches or leave them out.
Should I delete catch-all emails from my list?
Not automatically. Catch-all addresses often belong to real people at companies with strict mail setups. Verify them first, keep the ones that resolve as valid, and treat the rest as a separate, higher-risk segment.
How do I check if a domain is catch-all?
Use the free catch-all email checker. It asks the domain’s mail server to accept a random address that can’t exist. If the server accepts it instead of rejecting it, the domain is catch-all.

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