Catch-all

Catch-all is a simple email address that is created to simply “catch all” of the emails addressed to a domain that are not cataloged in the mail server. Catch all mailboxes are very useful for businesses and organizations that need to address the needs of their clients and customers.  A catch-all is created to receive all messages that are sent to misspelled email addresses. It is not uncommon for users to leave off letters or characters when corresponding with a company for the first time. For example, a user might attempt to contact the customer service department by messaging customerservice@exampledomain.com rather than the domains actual account: customer_service@exampledomain.com. Instead of being returned to the sender as undeliverable or lost, the address will be directed to a master account such as undefined@exampledomain.com.

Unfortunately, spammers can easily abuse catch-all addresses. By randomly generating an email prefix for a domain, they can easily reach the catch-all mailbox. It is important that someone regularly check these domain mailboxes to ensure that spam messages do not obscure meaningful communications that require action.