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David Rice2

Q: How do you bounce spam email in Apple mail?

Is there a way to bounce spam email back to the sender using the Apple mail client? I get spam email because some company was hacked and then sold my email address.  The Mail app is filtering most of it out into the junk folder. But is there a way to have that email bounce back to the sender so that they will stop sending it to my "me.com" email address?

Posted on Mar 10, 2016 5:39 AM

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Q: How do you bounce spam email in Apple mail?

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  • by QuickTimeKirk,

    QuickTimeKirk QuickTimeKirk Mar 10, 2016 5:46 AM in response to David Rice2
    Level 9 (53,134 points)
    Mar 10, 2016 5:46 AM in response to David Rice2

    Apple removed "bounce" from the Mail app years ago. It doesn't really do anything but confirm your email address was correct.

  • by BobTheFisherman,Apple recommended

    BobTheFisherman BobTheFisherman Mar 10, 2016 7:27 AM in response to David Rice2
    Level 6 (15,334 points)
    Mar 10, 2016 7:27 AM in response to David Rice2

    Bouncing email is a bad idea. It confirms to the sender that they have a good address for you, and more importantly, spammers spoof sent from email addresses so bounced email goes to innocent email users. Even worse, if the bounced email goes to an innocent email user who has also set up auto bounce of email then a race condition is created where an email continues to  bounce around the Internet. Multiply these bounced messages by millions a day and it is not difficult to imaging the negative impact of bouncing emails.

     

    Most if not all email clients and servers removed this capability years ago.

  • by David Rice2,

    David Rice2 David Rice2 Mar 11, 2016 8:48 PM in response to BobTheFisherman
    Level 1 (25 points)
    Mar 11, 2016 8:48 PM in response to BobTheFisherman

    Thanks, I didn't really understand how it worked. Now I know why that function was removed.  Just wished there was a way to make these spammers think my email address is not worth sending it to.  Though I guess it costs them nothing and I am among thousands of email addresses they send things to at the same time.