Catch-All Email Addresses: What to Use Instead
Why our hosting rejects mail sent to addresses that don't exist at your domain instead of offering a catch-all, and how to receive every address you need.
A catch-all address receives every message sent to an address that doesn't exist at your domain. With a catch-all on info@yourdomain.com, mail to sales@, jhon@ (a typo of john@), or anything@yourdomain.com would land in info@.
Catch-all addresses aren't available on CR Servers shared hosting. Mail sent to an address that doesn't exist is rejected, and the sender gets an error right away.
Why we don't offer it
Spammers send to thousands of made-up addresses at every domain. With a catch-all, all of that gets delivered:
- the mailbox fills up in days and real mail gets buried,
- spam filters have to accept and store mail they'd otherwise refuse at the door,
- your domain confirms to spammers that any address "works", which brings even more spam.
Rejecting unknown addresses also helps the people writing to you: if they mistype an address, they find out at once instead of thinking you got the message.
What to use instead
Create each address you need as an alias. An alias forwards one address to a mailbox, with no extra login. For example:
sales@yourdomain.com→info@yourdomain.combilling@yourdomain.com→info@yourdomain.comjohn.smith@andjsmith@→john@yourdomain.com
Aliases don't use disk space of their own, and you can add or remove them at any time.
Send one address to several people. Use an email group, for example team@ delivering to three mailboxes.
Moving from another provider that had a catch-all? Before you change the MX records, look through the old catch-all mailbox for the addresses people actually write to, and create those as aliases here first.
The Bounce Messages setting
In the panel, Hosting Features → Email → Overview shows Bounce Messages for the domain:
| Option | What happens |
|---|---|
| On – reject mail addressed to invalid recipients (Recommended) | The sender gets a "user unknown" error. This is the default; leave it on. |
| Off – accept then discard mail addressed to invalid recipients | Mail to unknown addresses is accepted and silently deleted. The sender never learns it was lost. Not recommended. |
Good to know
- If the domain's mail is handled by Google Workspace or another provider, its catch-all rules apply instead. See Use Google Workspace as your mail server.
- Missing mail for an address that should exist? See Troubleshoot email.