Catch-all (accept-all) email domains: what accept_all means

valid accept_all: true

The domain accepts mail for any address, so this specific mailbox cannot be confirmed.

What it means

A catch-all (or accept-all) domain is configured to accept mail for every address, real or not. Asking its server about anything@company.com always gets a yes.

EEV detects this and returns accept_all: true. The result is valid with accepted_email, because the server did accept the address, but safe_to_send is false: the acceptance does not prove that a person reads this mailbox. Some catch-all servers accept the message and then discard it, or bounce it later.

Why it happens

• Companies that want to receive mail sent to misspelled employee addresses.
• Domains behind security gateways that accept everything first and filter afterwards.

What to do

• Keep catch-all addresses in a separate segment instead of deleting them: many of them are real, especially in B2B lists.
• Send to that segment in smaller batches and watch the bounce rate before you send to all of it.
• Give more weight to other evidence: a contact who opened or clicked before, or a form with confirmation by email.

Example API response

{
    "email": "jane.doe@example.com",
    "result": "valid",
    "reason": "accepted_email",
    "disposable": false,
    "accept_all": true,
    "role": false,
    "free": false,
    "user": "jane.doe",
    "domain": "example.com",
    "mx_record": "mx1.example.com",
    "mx_domain": "example.com",
    "safe_to_send": false,
    "did_you_mean": "",
    "success": true,
    "message": "Processing time: 812 ms",
    "http_code": "200"
}

Try it without an account: the API has a free sandbox key, eev_sandbox_key, that returns fixed answers for test addresses such as valid@, invalid@, unknown@ and catchall@sandbox.easyemailverification.com.

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