| Why did I receive an e-mail from “mailer-daemon@aol.com”?
How can I know why the e-mail is returned in the mailer-daemon error report itself?
I cannot send e-mails to a particular e-mail address. Why?
I receive mailer-daemon error reports for e-mails that I did not send. Why?
Why did I receive an e-mail from “mailer-daemon@aol.com”?
An automated error report from the e-mail delivery system (mailer-daemon@aol.com) indicates that there has been a problem in delivering your e-mail to its destination. If you receive this error, your e-mail message will be returned to you along with an outline of the delivery problem.
The most common cause for receiving a mailer-daemon message is an incorrectly addressed e-mail.
An e-mail address in general must be typed correctly with no spaces and with the @ symbol in the correct place, for example, user_name@domain.com.
When considering an AOL e-mail address in particular, the screen name is the part of the e-mail address that appears before the @ symbol, i.e., screenname@aol.com. Valid AOL e-mail addresses cannot
- Be shorter than 3 or longer than 16 characters.
- Begin with numbers.
- Contain punctuation of any kind (such as periods, underscores, or dashes).
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How can I know why the e-mail is returned in the mailer-daemon error report itself?
Once you read the mailer-daemon error report, you will know why your e-mail was returned and how you can avoid such circumstances in the future. The five sections of the error report are explained below:
- The first section tells you when (date and time) your e-mail was received by the mail system.
"The original message was received at Tue, 14 Jul 1998 20:48:05-0400 (EDT) from your.domain.org [x.x.x.x]"
- The second section will be a brief message from the Postmaster. The line begins with " <<<" describes the specific reason your e-mail could not be delivered. The next line contains a second error message that is a general translation for other e-mail servers.
*** ATTENTION***
Your e-mail is being returned to you because there was a problem with its delivery.
The (client) address that was undeliverable is listed in the section labeled: "----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors-----."
"The reason your mail is being returned to you is listed in the section labeled:
-----Transcript of Session Follows-----."
- The third section has the heading "-----The following addresses had permanent fatal errors----." Here, you will find the address(es) that the e-mail could not be delivered to.
- The fourth section is the most important in terms of determining why your e-mail could not be delivered because it contains the specific error because of which the e-mail could not be delivered.
"----- Transcript of session follows ----- ... while talking to air18.mail.aol.com: >>> RCPTTo:<9988MQZ@aol.com><<< 550 Mailbox not found 550 <9988MQZ@aol.com>... User unknown."
- The last section is "----- Original message follows -----." This contains your original e-mail that is returned to you as undelivered.
Some common mailer-daemon messages are explained in the article Common mailer daemon messages.
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I cannot send e-mails to a particular e-mail address. Why?
You may not be able to send e-mails to a particular e-mail address and may get a mailer-daemon error report containing the error message "550 <username> is not accepting mail from this sender." This indicates that your e-mail address has been blocked on the basis of the spam control or privacy settings set by the owner of that particular e-mail account.
If the e-mail address that you are trying to send e-mails to is an AOL e-mail address, you can direct the owner of that particular e-mail account to our online help article Mail controls and privacy settings for more information on changing the privacy settings. However, if the e-mail address is not an AOL e-mail address, please ask the owner of that particular e-mail account to contact their e-mail service provider for more information on how to change privacy settings for their e-mail account.
I receive mailer-daemon error reports for e-mails that I did not send. Why?
It is possible that your computer could be infected by malware or a virus. Our online help article I receive mailer daemons for e-mails gives you more information about a virus and about the security features AOL provides to help you in such a situation.
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