Outlook 2010 throws errors when sending out a mass email

Question

On Friday I attempted to help a client send out a mass email from Outlook 2010. I'm fairly weak in Outlook and I did a bit of research that one way to accomplish a mass email was to use the Mail Merge function. This worked but some of the emails that were sent to came back with errors. Some of the errors include:

Generic Error: An error occurred while trying to deliver this message to the recipient's e-mail address.

[email protected] Your message wasn't delivered because of security policies.

[email protected] The recipient's e-mail address was not found in the recipient's e-mail system.

[email protected] The recipient's e-mail address was not found in the recipient's e-mail system.

xxx[email protected] There's a problem with the recipient's mailbox

Anyone have any information on any of these errors or where I could look for clues?

P.S. Sorry if this is something for superuser.com. I felt it was appropriate for serverfault.com and feel free to transfer it over if necessary.

Answer 1

These look like fairly normal NDR's to me. Invariably when sending bulk email you're going to get some failures due to: spam filtering on the remote system, mailboxes that no longer exist, mailboxes that are full, etc., etc. Here's my take on what you posted:

[email protected] Your message wasn't delivered because of security policies. This is likely due to a spam filter on the recipient's end.

[email protected] The recipient's e-mail address was not found in the recipient's e-mail system. This means that the user doesn't have a mailbox on the remote system or doesn't have an email address matching the one you sent to.

[email protected] The recipient's e-mail address was not found in the recipient's e-mail system. Same as above.

xxxx[email protected] There's a problem with the recipient's mailbox. This could mean any number of things, such as the recipient's mailbox being full.

Answer 2

It looks like you are just receiving the response e-mails for addresses that have problems.

[email protected] Your message wasn't delivered because of security policies.

I would guess that earthkink.net thinks your message is spam.

[email protected] The recipient's e-mail address was not found in the recipient's e-mail system.

This just looks like that this isn't a valid address any more - the same with the AOL address.

xxx[email protected] There's a problem with the recipient's mailbox

This user could well have a full mailbox that can't accept any more messages.

I wouldn't worry too much, especially if the rest of the messages were received. One thing I do is add an external e-mail address I monitor to the list so I can check that the mailing has worked for at least one address. If that e-mail gets the message then I know that the mailing left my system successfully.