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Having a service that sends out notifications to users, I'm currently thinking about changing the sender email address from "info@" to something more meaningful.

Since a reply never makes sense, I'm thinking about using one of those "no reply" email addresses.

After doing some checks through my email inbox from the last 10 years and some Google search, I'm not sure which one is "better" (in terms of more likely to not be filtered out by Spam checkers) to use:

  • "noreply@mydomain.com" -or-
  • "no-reply@mydomain.com"?

Also, I'm not sure whether the difference matters at all.

So my question is:

Which kind of "no reply" e-mail address to use and why?

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  • 3
    Don't. You need to collect and process bounce messages and messages from people who don't read your instructions to "not reply to this message". Dec 27, 2012 at 5:46
  • 2
    @MichaelHampton While his software certainly needs to collect and properly handle 4xx and 5xx messages, I don't see why it needs to come from an e-mail address that's monitored.
    – Chris S
    Dec 27, 2012 at 5:49
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    @MichaelHampton - Our service is similar to YouSendIt to notify users about an upload. Until now I get thousands of "I'm out of office" replies a day, which I really do not need. Actually I cannot imagine of a single use case where a reply makes sense.
    – Uwe Keim
    Dec 27, 2012 at 6:03

1 Answer 1

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Either is completely acceptable so long as you configure the basics (DNS, SPF, DKIM is a good idea... etc). Make sure your software properly responds to 4xx and 5xx errors. Spam filtering rarely considers the e-mail address, except upon repeat messages (keeping track of "reputation" so to say).

Side note: in geekier communities I've seen bit-bucket used as well; though the general public is not expected to "get" that reference. All my domains "accept" e-mail at this address (along with all the RFC 821 required addresses).

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  • As far as I know, the Thunderbird is the only software that tries to warn the user about replying to no-replyable addresses and its implementation knows both [email protected] and [email protected] so you can use either one. I personally find [email protected] more readable. See stackoverflow.com/a/72472668/334451 for details. Jun 2, 2022 at 9:02
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    As a non-native English speaker, I did not understand what "noreply" meant for a very long time, I just thought it was a weird name. I therefore prefer "no-reply".
    – student91
    Oct 10, 2023 at 15:30

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