What does a hard bounce user unknown [5.0.0 SMTP reply matched bounce-rcpt pattern rule] mean?

Summary

A 'hard bounce user unknown' error, indicated by a 5.0.0 SMTP code, signifies a permanent delivery failure. This indicates the receiving email server encountered a critical error, deeming the email undeliverable, and future attempts will likely fail. The 'User Unknown' component typically implies the email address is invalid, doesn't exist at the recipient's domain, the user account has been closed, or recipients marked the sender as unwanted. Possible reasons include typos, domain issues, the recipient server blocking delivery, or the domain not existing anymore. DSN codes starting with '5' confirm permanent failure. Real Google bounces end with '-gsmtp', absence indicates a non-genuine bounce. ESPs might misclassify bounces, especially regarding temporary issues like over quota (signaled by a 452 code) requiring careful interpretation. Maintaining good list hygiene by promptly removing hard bounces is crucial for sender reputation and deliverability, involving proactive list management and potentially email validation services.

Key findings

  • Permanent Failure: The 5.0.0 SMTP code signifies a permanent delivery failure, indicating the email will not be delivered.
  • Invalid Recipient: "User Unknown" suggests the email address is invalid or doesn't exist at the recipient's domain, or the user account has been closed.
  • List Hygiene: Removing hard bounces from your email list is critical for maintaining a good sender reputation and improving email deliverability.
  • Google Bounce Verification: Real Google bounces end with '-gsmtp'; lack of this indicates a non-genuine bounce.
  • Misclassification Potential: ESPs can misclassify bounces, necessitating careful interpretation, particularly with temporary issues like over quota situations.
  • Sender Reputation Impact: Repeatedly sending to invalid addresses negatively impacts sender reputation, potentially leading to being flagged as a spammer.
  • Other reasons for User Unknown: Recipients might mark senders as unwanted, causing hard bounces

Key considerations

  • ESP Response: Consult your Email Service Provider (ESP) to understand the specific bounce message and SMTP response for accurate diagnosis, including clarifying potential misclassifications.
  • Monitor and Remove: Implement a system for monitoring bounces and automatically removing hard bounced addresses from your mailing list to prevent future sends.
  • List Validation: Consider using email validation services to proactively identify and correct invalid email addresses before sending, minimizing hard bounces.
  • Google Bounce Validation: Verify if bounces from Gmail addresses truly originate from Google (check for '-gsmtp') to avoid incorrect classification.
  • Over Quota Monitoring: Monitor over quota bounces, understanding these can be temporary (452 code), and avoid prematurely removing valid subscribers.
  • Proactive List Management: Implement proactive list management practices, including regular cleaning and validation, to maintain a healthy subscriber list.

What email marketers say
10Marketer opinions

A 'hard bounce user unknown' error, indicated by a 5.0.0 SMTP code, signifies a permanent delivery failure, meaning the email could not be delivered and further attempts are unlikely to succeed. The 'User Unknown' component typically implies the email address is invalid, doesn't exist at the recipient's domain, or the user account has been closed. Possible reasons include typos, domain issues, or the recipient server blocking delivery. Maintaining good list hygiene by promptly removing hard bounces is essential for sender reputation and deliverability.

Key opinions

  • Permanent Failure: The 5.0.0 SMTP code signifies a permanent delivery failure, indicating the email will not be delivered.
  • Invalid Recipient: "User Unknown" suggests the email address is invalid or doesn't exist at the recipient's domain.
  • List Hygiene: Removing hard bounces from your email list is critical for maintaining a good sender reputation and improving email deliverability.
  • DSN Interpretation: The 'dsnstatus' may be a made up response and it may be wise to request the actual SMTP response from ESP.
  • Root cause: Typo in the recipient's address or the user may have left the company.

Key considerations

  • ESP Response: Consult your Email Service Provider (ESP) to understand the specific bounce message and SMTP response for accurate diagnosis.
  • Monitor and Remove: Implement a system for monitoring bounces and automatically removing hard bounced addresses from your mailing list.
  • List Validation: Consider using email validation services to proactively identify and correct invalid email addresses before sending.
  • Bounce Misclassification: It may be wise to double check that your ESP is classifying the correct type of bounce message and dsn status response.
Marketer view

Email marketer from Reddit shares that a hard bounce often means the email address is no longer valid, the domain might not exist anymore, or the recipient's server has blocked the sender. They recommend immediately removing these addresses from the mailing list.

May 2024 - Reddit
Marketer view

Email marketer from Email Geeks explains that the bounce message is from the ESP and the actual SMTP response should be requested from them to understand the real reason for the bounce.

July 2022 - Email Geeks
Marketer view

Email marketer from Constant Contact shares that keeping your contact lists clean and up-to-date to avoid hard bounces will improve your sender reputation. Removing non-existent email addresses improves email deliverability.

September 2021 - Constant Contact
Marketer view

Email marketer from ActiveCampaign explains that hard bounces are permanent delivery failures. A key reason is an invalid email address. Removing hard bounces from your lists is crucial to maintaining a healthy sender reputation.

February 2022 - ActiveCampaign
Marketer view

Email marketer from SparkPost shares that a hard bounce signals a permanent reason for delivery failure, such as an invalid email address. This invalid address is most likely the case when 'User Unknown' is returned.

June 2023 - SparkPost
Marketer view

Email marketer from SendGrid shares that a hard bounce means the email address is invalid or doesn't exist. This can be due to typos, domain issues, or the recipient's server blocking delivery. Hard bounces should be removed from your mailing list to maintain a good sender reputation.

October 2022 - SendGrid
Marketer view

Email marketer from MailerQ shares that 5xx errors indicate that the mail could not be delivered. This is a permanent error and that you should not try to deliver the mail again to the same recipient. A "User unknown" is often caused by a typo in the recipient's address, or the user may have left the company.

April 2024 - MailerQ
Marketer view

Email marketer from Stack Overflow answers that a 'User Unknown' error (often represented by a 550 code, which falls under the 5.X.X category) indicates that the email address you are trying to reach does not exist on the recipient mail server. The user may never have existed, or the account may have been closed.

November 2021 - Stack Overflow
Marketer view

Email marketer from Email Geeks explains that `dsnstatus` is made up, `dsndiag` is what Google told the delivering MTA. Also, Tim Starr says Yes, that looks like a miscategorization of the bounce code from the receiving MTA. It should be a 4.x.x bounce, not 5.0.0. Some 5.0.0's are hard, some not, but this isn't any kind of 5.x.x bounce at all, much less a 5.0.0.

April 2022 - Email Geeks
Marketer view

Email marketer from Tech Support Forum explains that SMTP error codes beginning with '5' signal a permanent failure. The 'User Unknown' message usually means the email address does not exist at the recipient's domain. This is a typical hard bounce reason.

December 2022 - Tech Support Forum

What the experts say
6Expert opinions

A hard bounce with the 'user unknown' error, often indicated by a 5.0.0 code, signifies that the recipient's email address is invalid or non-existent. This can occur because the address never existed, the account was closed, or recipients marked the sender as unwanted. Real Google bounces end with '-gsmtp'; absence indicates a non-genuine bounce. ESPs might misclassify bounces, as seen with Pardot's bounce handling rules. Over quota situations may also trigger bounces, but these can be temporary, signaled by a 452 code. Effective list management, proactive removal of invalid addresses, and proper bounce interpretation are crucial for maintaining sender reputation and deliverability.

Key opinions

  • Invalid Address: 'User Unknown' signifies an invalid or non-existent email address.
  • Unwanted Sender: Recipients might mark senders as unwanted, causing hard bounces.
  • Google Bounce Verification: Real Google bounces end with '-gsmtp'; lack of this indicates a non-genuine bounce.
  • Misclassification Potential: ESPs can misclassify bounces, necessitating careful interpretation.
  • Over Quota Handling: Over quota bounces may be temporary (signaled by 452 code); ensure subscribers aren't removed prematurely.
  • List Cleaning Importance: Regular list cleaning by removing hard bounces is essential to avoid being flagged as spam.

Key considerations

  • Bounce Interpretation: Understand the specific bounce messages and codes provided by your ESP.
  • Google Bounce Validation: Verify if bounces from Gmail addresses truly originate from Google (check for '-gsmtp').
  • Over Quota Monitoring: Monitor over quota bounces to ensure temporary issues don't lead to permanent removal of valid subscribers.
  • Proactive List Management: Implement proactive measures to manage your email list and keep email addresses clean.
  • ESP Configuration: Ensure correct ESP configuration of bounce classifications to avoid inaccurate hard bounce classifications
Expert view

Expert from Email Geeks clarifies that over quota bounces at Google tend to be temporary (signaled by a 452 code) and suggests ensuring that the subscriber isn't removed from future sends due to the misclassification. Ideally, monitor the address for subsequent sends to confirm the quota issue is resolved.

October 2024 - Email Geeks
Expert view

Expert from Email Geeks shares that real Google bounces end with "-gsmtp", and if that's missing, it's not a genuine Google bounce.

November 2021 - Email Geeks
Expert view

Expert from Word to the Wise shares that receiving a 'user unknown' error means the email address doesn't exist. Regular list cleaning, including the removal of hard bounces, is essential for maintaining deliverability and avoiding being flagged as a spammer.

June 2022 - Word to the Wise
Expert view

Expert from Spam Resource explains that a 'user unknown' hard bounce indicates a non-existent email address and that maintaining list hygiene by removing these addresses is crucial for sender reputation. They emphasize proactive list management to avoid sending to invalid recipients.

December 2022 - Spam Resource
Expert view

Expert from Email Geeks explains, based on the description from Pardot, the system got a SMTP reply that matched one of their bounce handling rules and was classified as a user unknown. Headers are not helpful when trying to diagnose a delivery failure because they mean there was no delivery failure.

May 2024 - Email Geeks
Expert view

Expert from Email Geeks suspects that recipients (or their companies) might have marked the sender as unwanted, causing a permanent-failure "unknown user" bounce in an attempt to get the sender to remove them from the audience.

October 2024 - Email Geeks

What the documentation says
5Technical articles

A hard bounce, characterized by a 5.0.0 SMTP status code, signifies a permanent delivery failure. This indicates the receiving email server encountered a critical error, deeming the email undeliverable, and future attempts will likely fail. DSN codes starting with '5' confirm permanent failure. A common cause, represented by 'User Unknown', means the recipient address is invalid, non-existent, or rejected. The recommended action is to immediately cease sending emails to such addresses to maintain deliverability.

Key findings

  • Permanent Failure: A 5.0.0 SMTP status code indicates a permanent email delivery failure.
  • Invalid Address: "User Unknown" implies the recipient's email address is invalid or does not exist.
  • DSN Code '5': DSN codes starting with '5' signify a permanent error and undeliverable email.
  • Cessation of Sending: It is advised to immediately stop sending emails to addresses that generate a hard bounce due to an invalid recipient.

Key considerations

  • Address Removal: Immediately remove hard bounced email addresses from your mailing lists.
  • List Validation: Implement email list validation to identify and remove invalid addresses proactively.
  • Bounce Monitoring: Continuously monitor bounce rates to identify potential deliverability issues.
Technical article

Documentation from RFC 3463 explains that the first digit '5' of a DSN (Delivery Status Notification) code indicates a permanent failure. The second digit indicates the class of failure, and the third provides detail. A 'User Unknown' error falls under this permanent failure category.

May 2024 - RFC 3463
Technical article

Documentation from Oracle explains that a hard bounce is a permanent failure to deliver email, generally caused by a non-existent or invalid email address. It is important to remove these from your email list as the email is undeliverable.

November 2022 - Oracle
Technical article

Documentation from MDN Web Docs explains that a 5.0.0 status code in SMTP indicates a permanent failure. The email server encountered a critical error and was unable to deliver the message. Further attempts to send the email will likely result in the same failure.

July 2024 - MDN Web Docs
Technical article

Documentation from AWS explains that a hard bounce means the recipient's email address is invalid. This could be because the domain name doesn't exist, or because the recipient is unknown. They advise immediately stopping sending to these addresses.

June 2021 - AWS
Technical article

Documentation from Microsoft explains that a non-delivery report (NDR) with a 5.x.x error code indicates a permanent error. A common reason is 'recipient address rejected: User unknown in virtual alias table'. This means the email address does not exist in the organization.

December 2021 - Microsoft