Why is there a sharp increase in soft bounces from iCloud email addresses?
Summary
What email marketers say9Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Reddit mentions that iCloud has been known to have periods of increased bounce rates, possibly due to stricter spam filtering or temporary server issues on their end.
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares that they have seen high bounce rates at iCloud before when mailboxes are too full on the recipient side. The postmaster is usually responsive and suggests to scroll to the bottom of this page - <https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204137>
Email marketer from Email on Acid shares that soft bounces can occur due to a full inbox, temporary server problems, or the recipient's server being temporarily unavailable.
Email marketer from SendGrid notes that soft bounces include reasons such as 'mailbox full,' 'message too large,' or 'temporary server error,' advising investigation into whether issues are isolated to one domain like iCloud.
Email marketer from Stack Overflow shares that a soft bounce indicates a temporary problem, such as the recipient's mailbox being full, the server being down, or the message being too large.
Email marketer from Litmus explains that spikes in bounce rates, especially soft bounces, should be monitored closely. Investigating the specific error messages can help identify if the problem is isolated to a particular domain like iCloud.
Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum suggests that a sudden increase in iCloud soft bounces could be due to a temporary issue with their mail servers or a change in their spam filtering policies.
Email marketer from Quora shares that sometimes a sudden increase in soft bounces from iCloud can be related to them tightening their spam filters or implementing new security measures.
Email marketer from Mailchimp shares that soft bounces often point to transient issues, such as the recipient's server being temporarily down or the mailbox being over its quota, and advises monitoring these trends.
What the experts say3Expert opinions
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that soft bounces, including those from iCloud, can be due to a number of factors including temporary greylisting, reputation issues, or infrastructure problems at the receiving end.
Expert from Spam Resource suggests that a sudden increase in soft bounces from iCloud could be caused by temporary blocks placed on your sending IP or domain due to perceived spam-like activity.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that soft bounces are an internal classification done by the ESP and aren’t universal. It could be a spam block put up by iCloud (or their anti-spam vendor), and having the actual text of the bounce message is helpful.
What the documentation says5Technical articles
Documentation from AWS explains that temporary (soft) bounces are commonly caused by issues that are outside of the sender's control, such as the recipient's mailbox being full or a temporary problem with the recipient's email server.
Documentation from RFC Editor explains that a soft bounce, or temporary failure, means the message could not be delivered now but might be deliverable in the future. This is often due to temporary server issues or mailbox problems.
Documentation from Mailjet shares that soft bounces typically indicate transient issues like a full mailbox, a server being down or overloaded, or a message exceeding size limits. They do not necessarily indicate a permanent deliverability problem.
Documentation from Apple Support explains that if an iCloud user has exceeded their storage limit, incoming emails may bounce back to the sender.
Documentation from Microsoft explains that a soft bounce means that an email message was received by the recipient's mail server, but it was not delivered to the recipient's inbox. This can happen because the inbox is full, the server is temporarily unavailable, or the message is too large.