Honest Intros Sign in

Glossary

Soft bounce

A soft bounce is a temporary delivery failure, such as a full mailbox or a busy server, reported with a 4xx status code or as a delayed delivery.

Updated · By Otman Ounana · How we research

Why it matters when you send from your own Gmail

Unlike a hard bounce it does not mean the address is bad, so the right response is patience rather than deletion. Retrying the same address again and again, though, is how a soft bounce turns into a reputation problem. Honest Intros does not suppress an address on a soft bounce and does not count it towards the bounce brake. If the same address keeps failing for days, treat it as dead yourself.

Example

A recipient's inbox is full, so the server answers that it cannot accept the message right now. Mail you sent is delayed, and a later attempt may get through.

What to do

Give a delayed message a day or two and do not resend it by hand. If it still has not arrived after that, remove the address from your list and move on.

Related terms

All terms are on the glossary.

Read next

  • Can cold email get Gmail suspended?When Google pauses or suspends sending from a Gmail or Workspace account, for how long, and the habits that keep a mailbox used for cold email safe. Quoted from Google.
  • Gmail 550 5.7.1 errorsGmail's 550 5.7.1 bounce has more than a dozen meanings. The ones a person sending from their own mailbox meets, quoted from Google's error list, with the fix for each.
  • MX recordAn MX (mail exchanger) record is a DNS entry that names the servers which accept incoming mail for a domain.
  • Spam trapA spam trap is an email address that real people do not use, kept by a mailbox provider or a blocklist operator to catch senders who mail addresses they should not.