Bounces
A bounce is a message the recipient's mail server rejected. Analytics → Bounce shows the bounces for everything you send, marketing and transactional, with the reason each one was rejected. The page is titled Bounce Summary.
You don't need a bounce mailbox or bounce rules: bounces come back to Mumara ONE through your sending domain's bounce domain and are processed automatically. See Sending Domains.
Choose the period
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Period list | Today, Yesterday, Last 7 Days or Last 30 Days |
| Date range box | The exact start and end of the period, in your account's time zone. Read-only. |
| Refresh | Reloads the page for the same period |
The periods offered depend on your plan's log retention. See How long data is kept.
Bounce Rate
The large figure is your Bounce Rate for the period:
Bounce Rate = bounced messages ÷ messages received
"Received" here is every message Mumara ONE accepted from you in the period. The line next to it gives the counts, for example "84 of 12,480 sent messages bounced Today".
Soft and hard bounces
The chart splits your bounces into two types:
| Type | What it means | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Hard | A permanent rejection. Sending the same message again won't work. | The mailbox doesn't exist, the domain doesn't exist, the address is malformed, and many policy blocks (5.7.x) |
| Soft | A failure that may clear. The same address may accept mail later. | The mailbox is full, or the server couldn't be reached before the message expired |
Mumara ONE decides the type from the status code and the reason the receiving server gave. Most permanent (5.x.x) codes count as hard: unknown users such as 5.1.1, and also many policy rejections (5.7.x) that servers use when they block mail. So a block at one provider can hard-bounce valid addresses. If you see a burst of hard bounces at one provider, read the Details column, and see Bounces and Complaints for how to recover those contacts.
When a receiving server answers "try again later", the message isn't bounced: it's delayed and retried automatically. It only becomes a bounce if the server rejects it outright or it still can't be delivered when its retry time runs out. You'll then see it here with a category such as message-expired. Messages being retried are on the Queues page.
The bounce table
The table lists each bounced message in the period. It's wide, so scroll sideways to see every column.
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| From | The sender's name and email address |
| To | The recipient who bounced |
| Time | When the bounce was recorded |
| Code | The enhanced status code the server returned, such as 5.1.1, with a short description |
| Bounce Classification | Soft or Hard |
| Queued Time | When Mumara ONE accepted the message |
| Bounce Category | A short reason, such as bad-mailbox or policy-related. See below. |
| Details | The receiving server's own words, for example 550 5.1.1 The email account that you tried to reach does not exist |
| Return Path | The envelope sender the bounce came back to, on your bounce domain |
| Recipient MTA | The recipient's mail server |
| Received From | How the message reached the sending server. Support may ask for it. |
| Node IP | The IP address the message was sent from |
| Recipient MTA IP | The IP address of the recipient's mail server |
| Sending Node | The pool the message was sent through |
| Message ID | The message's unique ID |
| Feed Type | Newsletter or Transactional |
| SMTP User | The Bridge the message was sent through, for transactional email |
| Queue Name | The delivery queue the message was in: the recipient domain and the pool |
| Job ID | The sending job. For marketing email, the scheduled campaign send. |
| Envelope ID | An internal delivery reference |
Use Previous and Next to page through, and the length menu to show more rows.
Bounce categories
The Bounce Category is a short label for the kind of failure. The most common ones are:
| Category | Usually means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
bad-mailbox | The address doesn't exist | Remove it. As a hard bounce, it's already left out of your future campaigns. |
bad-domain | The domain doesn't exist or has no mail server | Check for typos such as gmial.com, then remove it |
inactive-mailbox | The mailbox has been disabled or abandoned | Remove it |
quota-issues | The mailbox is full | Nothing: it may accept mail later |
message-expired | The message couldn't be delivered before its retry time ran out | Check Queues for the domain's last error |
policy-related | The receiving server refused the message under its own policy, often authentication or reputation | Read Details; check your sending domain's records and your reputation |
spam-related | The receiving server treated the message as spam | Read Details; review your content, list quality and reputation |
routing-errors, no-answer-from-host | The recipient's mail server couldn't be found or reached | Usually a problem on the recipient's side |
The Details column is always the best clue: it's exactly what the receiving server said, and it often includes a link to the provider's explanation.
What happens to bounced contacts
Mumara ONE processes every bounce for you:
- Marketing email. The contact is marked as bounced, soft or hard. Hard-bounced contacts are left out when your future campaigns are prepared, so you don't keep mailing addresses that don't exist.
- Transactional email. Transactional messages aren't tied to your contact lists, so nothing is changed in your lists. Your application should stop sending to addresses that hard-bounce, for example by listening for bounce events with a webhook.
Bounces also count towards your sending reputation. Mumara ONE watches the bounce rates of your lists and your account, and if they stay high it can warn you, block a list, stop a broadcast or suspend sending for the account. See Bounces and Complaints and Sending Reputation.
Keep your bounce rate low
- Only mail people who asked for it, and never use bought or scraped lists.
- Use confirmed opt-in where you can, so mistyped addresses never join your lists.
- Clean old lists before mailing them after a long break.
- Watch the trend on the Summary: the Bounce Rate card compares each period with the one before.
Common questions
A contact says their address works, but it hard-bounced. Why?
Read the Details column. Some servers return a "user unknown" code when they're actually blocking you, and a small typo in the address, such as a trailing dot, also causes a hard bounce. If the Details point to a block rather than a missing mailbox, the problem is your reputation with that provider, not the address.
Why is a message both delayed and bounced?
It was deferred and retried first, then rejected or expired. Its final status is Bounced, with the category showing why.
Where can I search for one bounced message?
Use Delivery Logs: set Status to Bounced and filter by Recipient Email.
Related pages
- Bounces and Complaints: what bounces mean for your deliverability
- Queues: messages being retried
- Delivery Logs: every message and its status
- Complaints: spam complaints