Bounce Email Right within Apple Mail

June 25th, 2007 | Posted in: Guide, Mac, Tech | Save to del.icio.us

Mail
I’m here at the office, and I was showing Travis my email on Apple Mail. I got a spam message and bounced it. He didn’t know that you could do that, so I thought I’d post a bit about this cool trick.

You know when you send an email to someone, but you screwed up and wrote the wrong email address? It bounces back to you saying that the message was not sent correctly. So, I hear you ask, why would this ever be useful. Well for two reasons. The more innocent being that when you get spammed, you don’t want people to keep sending you spam. If you bounce a spam email, the spammer gets a notice that the message did not arrive. They’ll think the email address doesn’t exist and move on. This is great for you because you get less and less spam since spammers don’t think you exist. The less innocent reason is that you have some “friend” who sent you something, and you really really don’t want to “know” what they wrote. Just bounce the email, and it will look like you never got it.

“Oh sorry, I didn’t make it to your party. I must never have got your email.”

Or even better, “Sorry professor, I never got the email you sent me that the schedule changed, and we have a test today.”

Let’s now walk through the super simple process of adding this to Apple Mail. Open Mail. Then click on “View” in the menubar. Select “Customize Toolbar…”

Customize Toolbar

Now you’ll be presented with a sheet that lists all the possible buttons to place on the toolbar. In the third row is an icon that reads “Bounce to sender.” Drag that to your toolbar. You now can close that sheet.

Now whenever you want to bounce an email, select in it Mail and then just click bounce. You’re all done.

Hope that helps.

http://www.benhummel.com Benjamin

WOW, I’m really digging this trick. I noticed the Bounce to Sender button just yesterday, and didn’t think a thing of it. Well, now it’s on my toolbar. Thanks!
http://benhummel.com/computersinternet/encrypting-a-disk-image-for-safe-file-storage/ Ben Hummel » Encrypting a Disk Image for safe file storage

[...] reading Dustin Bachrach’s post on bouncing messages in Apple Mail, I decided to try it myself. About half the time for me it works, but often I get a MAILER-DAEMON [...]
Rog

I’ve used this in the past and thought it worked great. Suddenly in the past 24 hours I have received nearly 300 “delivery failure” notices, many in German. These notices all reference reference mailings which I did not originate. Can someone help? This is overwhelming!

R.
http://modifoo.com modifoo

I am not so sure if this helps against spam, as most sender-addresses seem to be fake these days.
As the bounce-function is only a fake, spammers could (at least in theory) find out that you really do exists, and that your e-mail not only works, but that you take the time to read spam mails. This makes your e-mail ever so more valuable to our friendly spammers.

For the time being I would jujst recommend using Mails anti-spam filter, checking occasionally that there are no false positives in there, and deleting the remaining spam mails with a quick push of the Delete button.
Anonymous

The problem is probably the spammers that are using fake or temporary adresses. The y want you to read the content, not a reply. So when you bounce it, the server of the adress is probably replying you because the adress does’nt exist….
http://bouncemyspam.com/2009/05/bounce-my-spam-re-exim-no-bounce-for-spam-2/ Bounce My Spam – Re: [exim] No bounce for spam. « Bounce My Spam

[...] Bounce Email Right within Apple Mail » Dustin Bachrach BlogI’m here at the office, and I was showing Travis my email on Apple Mail. I got a spam message and bounced it. He didn’t know that you could do that, so I thought I’d post a [...]
http://bouncemyspam.com/2009/06/bounce-my-spam-bounce-email-right-within-apple-mail-%c2%bb-dustin-bachrach-blog/ Bounce My Spam – Bounce Email Right within Apple Mail » Dustin Bachrach Blog « Bounce My Spam

[...] Bounce Email Right within Apple Mail » Dustin Bachrach BlogI’m here at the office, and I was showing Travis my email on Apple Mail. I got a spam message and bounced it. He didn’t know that you could do that, so I thought I’d post a [...]
http://bouncemyspam.com/2009/06/bounce-my-spam-solved-reject-spam-zimbra-forums-3/ Bounce My Spam – [SOLVED] Reject SPAM – Zimbra – Forums « Bounce My Spam

[...] Bounce Email Right within Apple Mail » Dustin Bachrach BlogI’m here at the office, and I was showing Travis my email on Apple Mail. I got a spam message and bounced it. He didn’t know that you could do that, so I thought I’d post a [...]
http://bouncemyspam.com/2009/06/bounce-my-spam-bouncing-spam-and-virus-messages-joi-itos-web-3/ Bounce My Spam – Bouncing spam and virus messages – Joi Ito’s Web « Bounce My Spam

[...] Bounce Email Right within Apple Mail » Dustin Bachrach BlogI’m here at the office, and I was showing Travis my email on Apple Mail. I got a spam message and bounced it. He didn’t know that you could do that, so I thought I’d post a [...]
http://bouncemyspam.com/2009/06/bounce-my-spam-bounce-my-spam-2/ Bounce My Spam – Bounce My Spam « Bounce My Spam

[...] Bounce Email Right within Apple Mail » Dustin Bachrach BlogI’m here at the office, and I was showing Travis my email on Apple Mail. I got a spam message and bounced it. He didn’t know that you could do that, so I thought I’d post a [...]
http://bouncemyspam.com/2009/07/bounce-my-spam-nabble-squirrelmail-plugins-re-spam-buttons-bounce-and/ Bounce My Spam – Nabble – squirrelmail-plugins – Re: Spam Buttons – bounce and « Bounce My Spam

[...] Bounce Email Right within Apple Mail » Dustin Bachrach BlogI’m here at the office, and I was showing Travis my email on Apple Mail. I got a spam message and bounced it. He didn’t know that you could do that, so I thought I’d post a [...]
http://bouncemyspam.com/2009/08/bounce-my-spam-adding-bounce-spam-rejectiion-archive-directadmin-forums-2/ Bounce My Spam – Adding bounce spam rejectiion [Archive] – DirectAdmin Forums « Bounce My Spam

[...] Bounce Email Right within Apple Mail » Dustin Bachrach BlogI’m here at the office, and I was showing Travis my email on Apple Mail. I got a spam message and bounced it. He didn’t know that you could do that, so I thought I’d post a [...]
http://zixmailencryption.com/ zixmail

hi, can emulate the behavior of a bounced back email: to bounce back an email to its sender
Gordy

I have been testing the Bounce theory in email as described ad yes it sends it out of your inbox but it never arrives on the other end as a failed message. Just disappears into Cyber space.

I waited for 48 hours to make sure it arrived but it never did. Any suggestions. These test emails were sent before reading them like the Mac mail suggests.

Gordy

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Bounce Email Right within Apple Mail

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