Where Did All My Newsletters Go!

Some vacation and "we received your email" autoresponder messages are sent to the address in the "Return-Path" header line of the email being responded to.

The "Return-Path" address is where undeliverable (bounced) email is returned to. Many newsletter emailing software use the "Return-Path" address in that way.

If you have a choice, direct your autoresponder to respond to the address in the "Reply-To" or "From" email header line. Automatically responding to the "Return-Path" address can automatically unsubscribe you.

Newsletter emailing software should be able to distinguish between an autoresponder email and a real bounce. But not all do so distinguish.

I'm coding the bounce handling routines for our soon to be released B-Mailer™ newsletter emailing software.

Bounce email messages seem to be made for humans to read, formatted every which way. This module has taken more time than all the rest of B-Mailer™ modules combined.

There was no lack of email bounce messages to run the code against while testing; the Possibilities ezine has been published weekly since before year 2000.

The sheer number of ways bounce messages are formatted by different email server software in use on the Internet was daunting, at first. But I whipped it, at least for now.

I anticipate having to update that module intermittently, as programmers create new and update existing email handling software.

B-Mailer™ is getting an auto-update button for the bounce module. We like to make it as easy as we can for our customers.

Will Bontrager