A catch-all email alias is a bit like a safety net for your custom domain!
If you have your own domain set up and someone sends an email to an address that doesn't actually exist on that domain (perhaps because of a typo or a misunderstanding), that email will bounce back to them with error messages such as "Message not delivered," “Address not found," or "Recipient address rejected: User unknown."
A catch-all alias prevents this by gathering every single email sent to your domain (regardless of what prefix is used) and funneling it into one primary inbox. This ensures you don’t miss any messages.
Configuring a Catch-All
- Sign in to your Thundermail dashboard.
- Scroll down to the “Custom Domains” section. You will see “Email Aliases” options there.
- Click the “Add email alias” button.
- Leave the name field empty since we want it to capture all addresses.
- Make sure the correct domain you want to use is selected from the dropdown menu next to it.
- Press the “Submit” button.
That’s it! Thundermail will now start forwarding all received mail through your catch-all to your primary email address.
Sending Messages Through the Catch-All
Now that you have your catch-all set up, you can send messages from any prefixes you can think of without first having to set them up individually in your Email Aliases section!
For example, if you are composing an email message in Thunderbird, you can select your “From” dropdown and click “Customize From Address.” You could then type in something like name+vendor@example.com when contacting a specific vendor. When they reply, it will get sent to that address, ending up in your inbox due to the catch-all alias!
Something to Consider
While catch-alls are great for making sure you never overlook an email, they do have a possible downside: Spam.
Spammers will sometimes perform attacks where, once they find a custom domain, they send a bunch of junk to typical prefixes such as admin@, info@, help@, support@, etc. If you have a catch-all alias enabled, all of that could land in your inbox.
Due to this, you’ll want to keep an eye out for abnormal amounts of spam coming through your filters - If that happens, you may want to try disabling your catch-all to see if that helps.