rejected_email meaning: the mailbox does not exist

invalid reason: rejected_email

The domain is real and receives mail, but its server said this mailbox does not exist.

What it means

The domain and its mail server work. When asked about this specific mailbox, the server refused it, usually with an SMTP 550 answer such as "user unknown" or "no such mailbox".

Old lists collect many of these as people change jobs and close accounts. Sending to the address would produce a hard bounce.

Why it happens

• The account was closed, for example an employee who left the company or an abandoned free account.
• A typo in the part before the @ (jhon instead of john).
• An invented address typed into a form to get past it.

What to do

• Remove the address from your sending list and suppress it.
• If it is a valuable contact, look for a new address through your sales team or CRM; do not keep retrying the old one.
• In a signup form, ask the person to check the address.

Example API response

{
    "email": "former.employee@example.com",
    "result": "invalid",
    "reason": "rejected_email",
    "disposable": false,
    "accept_all": false,
    "role": false,
    "free": false,
    "user": "former.employee",
    "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.

Check an address for freeClean a whole list