Catch-all email address: Convenient or a magnet for spambots?

This may have happened to you before: Someone wants to send you an important email but types your name incorrectly. Instead of sending it to info@jouwdomein.nl, they send it to ifno@jouwdomein.nl or peter@jouwdomein.nl. Normally, the sender receives an error message (bounce) and the message never arrives. With a catch-all email address, you can intercept all these misaddressed emails.

That sounds like the ideal solution to ensure you never miss a customer or a quote request again. But there’s also a downside. Because by doing this, you’re throwing the door wide open to everyone and everything. In this blog post, we’ll explain how a catch-all email address works, what its pros and cons are, and whether it makes sense to set one up in your hosting package.

What exactly is a catch-all email address?

A catch-all email address is a setting in your email hosting that ensures all emails sent to your domain—regardless of what comes before the @ symbol—are forwarded to a central inbox. This was a solution to a problem that is now outdated—a problem that hardly ever occurs in practice.

Suppose your domain name is firmenname.nl and you set up info@bedrijfsnaam.nl as a catch-all.

- Does someone send an email to factuur@bedrijfsnaam.nl (even though this address doesn’t officially exist)? → It arrives at info@
- Does someone type ondersteunig@bedrijfsnaam.nl with a typo? → It arrives at info@
- Does someone make up willekeurigewoord@bedrijfsnaam.nl? → It arrives at info@

The Benefits of a Catch-All

Why should you set up a catch-all address? There are several theoretical advantages:

1. No missed messages due to typos: Customers, suppliers, or business partners who mistype an employee’s name will still be able to reach you.

2. No need to create separate email addresses: Do you want to use a unique address for a specific promotion or sign-up (such as nieuwsbrief-januari@jouwdomein.nl)? With a catch-all, you don’t have to create this address in your control panel first.

3. Everything in one place: All individual inquiries are received at a central email address.

The major drawback: A magnet for spambots

Although the benefits sound tempting, we at MijnHostingPartner.nl generally advise against using a catch-all. The reason? Spam. A lot of spam.

Spambots and cybercriminals use so-called dictionary attacks. They automatically send thousands of emails to random address combinations within a domain (admin@, support@, sales@, contact@, jan@, piet@, etc.).

• Without a catch-all: The mail server immediately rejects messages sent to non-existent addresses.

• With a catch-all: Your inbox gets flooded weekly with hundreds (or thousands) of unwanted emails.

Why this is a problem:

• Overflowing inbox: Amid all the spam, you end up missing that one important, misspelled email from a customer.

• Storage limit of your hosting package: Spam messages with large attachments can quickly fill up your email account’s storage space. That creates an unnecessary burden.

• Creates more unnecessary work: As soon as you open your email inbox, you first have to spend time deleting and identifying spam messages—instead of communicating with customers and suppliers. Our spam filtering and your own rules can catch a lot of it. But in any case, you’ll spend more time on tasks you’d rather not be doing.

Better Alternatives to a Catch-All

Do you want to remain reachable for common departments or variations without activating the spam magnet? Then use these clever alternatives:

1. Use email aliases

An email alias is a “virtual” address that forwards emails to your main address. Do you expect to frequently use addresses like administratie@, facturen@, or verkoop@? Set these up as aliases for your main address, info@. This way, you’ll receive all relevant emails neatly in one inbox, without unknown spam addresses getting through. You can even configure this so that emails can be sent via this alias.

2. Set up specific email accounts at

For employees or specific departments, it’s better to set up a real email account. In the MijnHostingPartner customer portal, this can be done with just a few clicks.

To do or not to do?

In the early days of the internet, a catch-all email address was a handy feature. These days, unfortunately, it’s mostly just a magnet for spambots.

Our advice: Keep the catch-all feature disabled and use email aliases and full-fledged email addresses instead. This will keep your inbox clean, save storage space, and ensure that important business emails remain organized.

It’s also a problem that rarely occurs in practice, since the error message in a bounce notification immediately reveals that the email address doesn’t exist. This can often be spotted and corrected at a glance.

Do you need help setting up email aliases?

Would you like to know how you can easily create email aliases for your domain in the MijnHostingPartner customer portal? Check out our knowledge base or contact our help desk via live chat!