POPcon always forwards my email to TWO Exchange mailboxes: The real recipient and a recipient named like my catch-all mailbox at the ISP. How do I stop that?

Q:

-----Original Message-----

Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2005 13:18:25 -0400
Subject: POPcon double forwarding

Hey Claus,

We are using a single mailbox at our web hosting company to catch all email destined for the domain @ourcompany.com. The mailbox is "catchall@ourcompany.com". POPcon downloads all mail just fine and also forwards it to the correct recpient. But every email is also forwarded to "catchall@ourcompany.com" although that address is nowhere in the TO: header of those emails.

Can you help me and tell me what causes this problem and how to resolve it?

Thanks,

Mark

A:

Mark,

POPcon does not only evaluate the TO: and CC: mail header fields because these frequently do not contain the real recipient information (think BCC) but instead uses many more header fields. You can ake a look at the "Advanced" configuration page, there is a list of all the supported header fields. Unfortunately your catch all mailbox name and the address is bound to wind up in some of the email headers where POPcon sees it. Plus it is a valid address inside your domain, so POPcon thinks the email should go to this recipient as well.

Solution: Very easy - just enter your catch-all address "catchall@ourcompany.com" on POPcon's "Advanced" configuration page under "remove string from start of recipient addresses" and activate that feature. That will cause this email address to be removed from all the recipient addresses found in the mail headers and will cause nothing to happen in case it is not present among these addresses. The only problem with this solution is that you can not use the catchall mailbox address for regular email since no email to this address will now get through. If you chose a comon address (info@ourcompany.com or postmaster@ourcompany.com) that you need to use for regular email please go to your ISP and change that name first to something that your don't use as a regular mail address and then enter that new address on the ADVANCED configuration page instead.

Best Regards,

Claus