Postmaster

As may be expected in email and computing, the postmaster is a title identifying a mail server’s administrator. Most domains have a postmaster address. These email addresses are simply: postmaster@example-domain.com. This address receives error emails that did not process correctly for a variety of reasons. The postmaster address also typically sends automatically generated responses to error emails.

The RFC (Request for Comments), a memorandum published and maintained by the Internet Engineering Task Force, describes methods and behaviors necessary for working on the Internet and Internet-connected systems. In this document, RFC 5321 requires that each website supporting SMTP must maintain a reserved “postmaster” mailbox with a case-insensitive local name.

Because domains are required to maintain these addresses, and they are easy to reach from email users, and is a common target for spammers. These addresses are not always directly affected by spamming efforts. However, they also may be indirectly impacted as they receive  bounced spam from other servers that may have mistakenly trusted a spam message’s fake return-path.