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Track undeliverable mail

Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 8:51 am
by fitchic77
How can you do this?

I have an email tool I built in php that sends email out and I need to know which get bounced back.

Any help would be appreciated!!
:roll:

Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 9:31 am
by Chris Corbyn
If you specify a Return-Path when you send it (swift makes this easy but it's possible to do with mail() too) then you can open that mailbox and scan it for messages.

Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 9:36 am
by fitchic77
I just need to know how many are bounced back for stats. I don't need to read the mail.

thanks!

Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 9:52 am
by Chris Corbyn
fitchic77 wrote:I just need to know how many are bounced back for stats. I don't need to read the mail.

thanks!
In that case you don't know what you need to know ;)

You DO need to read the email. PHP will have to open the mailbox and parse the messages. Either that or you set up a system filter to catch the mail at the MX. SMTP is a wonderfully basic archaic protocol. Messages get delivered to a MX, the MX tries to deliver them, if it fails it looks for the address in the Return-Path (the MAIL FROM envelope) and it sends a failure note to that address?

How would you like it to happen?

http://www.php.net/imap