When handling your email accounts via cPanel, you may encounter the concept of a “catch-all” mailbox. Although it may appear convenient to route all emails sent to non-existent addresses on your domain to a single mailbox, this approach can result in various problems.
By default, your cPanel account is configured to reject emails sent to an address that you haven’t already established with a mailbox or forwarder. These emails are categorized as “unrouteable.” We highly recommend maintaining these default settings.
The Issue with Catch-All Addresses
While it’s feasible to forward all unrouteable emails to a catch-all address, we strongly discourage this approach. Catch-all addresses are particularly attractive to spammers. Once your domain gains visibility, spammers will direct their attention to random usernames associated with your domain. Consequently, filtering spam becomes more challenging because your account will no longer reject emails intended for unknown recipients.
If You Find It Necessary To Employ A Catch-All A mail Address
If you find it necessary to employ a catch-all email address , and you wish to read such emails using a third-party system like Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, etc., we recommend configuring a LOCAL mailbox to receive the messages. Then, you can collect mail from that mailbox using the third-party’s POP3 collection tools.
Please click here to follow our guide on how to set up a default email address.
💡 Important Note
We advise against forwarding all mail to the system account unless you have a compelling reason. Choosing this option may render your account more susceptible to spam.