Glossary Deliverability
What is a catch-all email domain?
Also called Accept-all domain
A catch-all domain is an email domain whose server accepts messages for any address at that domain, whether or not a real mailbox exists, so a verification check cannot tell a real address from a made-up one.
Companies set up catch-all to avoid losing mail sent to misspelled addresses. The side effect is that a server check says "yes" to everything.
Mail to a non-existent address on a catch-all domain may be silently dropped or bounce later, so these addresses carry more risk than verified ones.
Why it matters
- Catch-all results look valid but are not proof, which can quietly raise bounce rates.
- Many mid-size and large companies run catch-all servers, so it affects a lot of B2B email.
- Treating them differently from verified addresses protects your mailbox.
How Reach Crew handles it
Checker marks an address on a catch-all server as "might bounce" and holds it for you instead of sending. If you choose to allow these, Reach Crew sends at most 5 a day and stops at the first bounce.
Related terms
- Email verification. Email verification is the process of checking that an email address is correctly formed, belongs to a domain...
- Bounce rate. Bounce rate is the percentage of sent emails that come back as undeliverable, usually because the address does...
- Hard and soft bounce. A hard bounce is a permanent delivery failure, such as an address that does not exist, while a soft bounce is...