Bounced messages: POP3 part

In SMTP part of this sample we made the bounce e-mails arrive to the specified single e-mail account.

Each bounced e-mail contains (along with other info) the failed e-mail address. This failed address is what we want to know. The task looks pretty simple – all you have to do is to scan the bounced body for typical words that would determine the bad address. But there is a hidden danger: each mail server uses its own bounce message format. While they have almost the same "From" and "Subject" fields, the bad address can be at any place of the message. The typical bounced message form MailEnable server looks like this:

From: POSTMASTER@domain.com
To: jdoe@domain.com
Subject: Message Delivery Failure

MailEnable: Message Delivery Failure.

The following recipient(s) could not be reached: 

Recipient: [SMTP: bill@domain.com] Reason: The message could not be delivered because the domain name (domain.com) does not appear to be registered.

The function GetInvalidEmailAddressME() checks whether the message is bounced and extracts the failed address from the bounced message. Due to different format of the bounced message this function is valid only for MailEnable servers. For example, if you are using the Communigate Pro server, then the bounce message looks like this:

From: MAILER-DAEMON@domain.local
To: jdoe@localhost Subject:
Undeliverable mail:

Failed to deliver to '<bill@localhost>'

As you can see, this bounced message is almost the same as the previous one. It does not matter which server you use, the bounce message always has From, To and Subject fields, the bounce message will also have the failed address in its body. The function GetInvalidEmailAddressCP() is almost identical to the previous one; the difference is only in checking the message fields and searching for the failed address. It is vital to support as many bounced e-mail formats as possible. That is why you need to modify the GetInvalidEmailAddress() function to suit the bounced e-mail format used by the servers to which you are sending mail.

Note: In some cases you may want to scan the bounced e-mails for other information. E.g. do not remove e-mail address if the bounced message arrived due to a temporary problem: the mailbox is over quota, the mail server is down, etc. Bounce messages can be divided into two types: hard ones and soft ones. Hard bounces occur if there is a nonexistent account or domain. Other failures, such as a full mailbox or temporarily unavailable domain, are soft bounces. You can count hard and soft bounces for each address in your database. Probably, the next attempt to send a message to the address which has some soft bounces will succeeded. Of course, if one address has 10 or more soft bounces, it can be marked as hard one. Nevertheless, one hard bounce does not always mean that the address is really invalid; it would be more reliable to delete the address from the database after at least two hard bounces. To determine the soft bounces your application should scan the text of the bounced messages looking for phrases that indicate the reason for the bounce, such as "delivery failure", "mailbox full", etc...

Code example:

In this sample we retrieve the bounced e-mails from the specified account and then extract the failed e-mail address from each bounced e-mail. The failed address is passed to the RemoveEmailFromDatabase subroutine which must remove the failed address from the database (you should implement this code yourself to operate with your database). The application also deletes the bounced email from the server to avoid processing the next time.

// Create POP3 object
Pop3 pop = new Pop3();

// Enable logging to file
pop.Log.Enabled = true;
pop.Log.Filename = @"C:\log.txt";
pop.Log.Clear();

// Connect to POP3 server
pop.Connect("mail.domain.com");
pop.Login("bounce", "secret");

// Download headers and bodies of all messages.
MailMessageCollection msgs = pop.DownloadMessageHeaders(1, -1, -1);
                        
// Loop through all messages in the mailbox
foreach (MailMessage msg in msgs)
{
        string strLine = msg.BodyPlainText;
        Console.WriteLine("From: " + msg.From.Email);
                                
        // Get failed email address
        string str_invalid_email =  GetInvalidEmailAddressME(msg);

        // If str_invalid_email is non-empty then failed email 
        // address was found
        if (str_invalid_email.Length > 0)
        {
                // Remove failed email from database
                RemoveEmailFromDatabase(str_invalid_email);

                // Display invalid adress
                Console.WriteLine("Invalid email: " + str_invalid_email);                

                // Delete bounced email from server to avoid
                // processing it next time
                pop.DeleteMessage(msg.IndexOnServer);
        }
}

// Disconnect from POP3 server
pop.Disconnect();

// The function checks whether the message is bounced and extracts 
// failed address 
// from bounced message. Valid only for MailEnable servers
static string  GetInvalidEmailAddressME(MailMessage msg)
{
        string str_invalid_email = msg.BodyPlainText;

        // Check if this is a bounced message report
        if (msg.Subject.IndexOf("Delivery Failure") == -1)
{ 
                return "";
        }
        if (msg.From.ToString().IndexOf("POSTMASTER") == -1)
        {
                return "";
        }

        // Now we're sure this is a bounced message report
        int i_start;
        i_start = str_invalid_email.IndexOf("SMTP:");

        // Check if bounced message report contains "Recipient:" field
        if (i_start == -1)
        {
                return "";
        }
                        
        // Get failed address
        i_start += 5;
        i_end = str_invalid_email.IndexOf("]",i_start);
        str_invalid_email.Substring(i_start, i_end);
                        
        return str_invalid_email;
}

// The function checks whether the message is bounced and extracts 
// failed address 
// from bounced message. Valid only for Communigate Pro servers
static string  GetInvalidEmailAddressCP(MailMessage msg)
{
string str_invalid_email = msg.BodyPlainText;

        // Check if this is a bounced message report
        if (msg.Subject.IndexOf("Undeliverable mail") == -1) 
        {
                return "";
        }
        if (msg.From.ToString().IndexOf("MAILER-DAEMON") == -1) 
        {
                return "";
        }

        // Now we're sure this is a bounced message report
        int i_start;
        i_start = str_invalid_email.IndexOf("to '<");

        // Check if bounced message report contains 
        // "Failed to deliver to " field
        if (i_start == -1)
        { 
                return "";
        }
                        
        // Get failed address
        i_start += 5;
        i_end = str_invalid_email.IndexOf("]",i_start);
        str_invalid_email.Substring(i_start, i_end);
                        
        return str_invalid_email;
}

// This function must remove (or disable) specified
// email address from mailing list
static void RemoveEmailFromDatabase(string str_invalid_email)
{
// TODO: Add your code here                        
}

Dim pop As New Pop3

' Enable logging to file
pop.Log.Enabled = True
pop.Log.Filename = "C:\log.txt"
pop.Log.Clear()

' Connect to POP3 server
pop.Connect("mail.domain.com")
pop.Login("jdoe", "secret")

' Download headers and bodies for all messages.
Dim msgs As MailMessageCollection = pop.DownloadMessageHeaders(1, -1, -1)

' Loop through all messages in the mailbox
Dim msg As MailMessage
For Each msg In msgs
        Dim strLine As String = msg.BodyPlainText
        Console.WriteLine("From: " + msg.From.Email)

        ' Get failed email address
        Dim str_invalid_email As String = GetInvalidEmailAddressME(msg)

        ' If str_invalid_email is non-empty then failed email 
        ' address was found
        If str_invalid_email.Length > 0 Then
                'Remove failed email from database
                RemoveEmailFromDatabase(str_invalid_email)

                ' Display invalid address
                Console.WriteLine("Invalid email: " & str_invalid_email)

                ' Delete bounced email from server to avoid
                ' processing it next time
                pop.DeleteMessage(msg.IndexOnServer)
        End If
Next
Console.ReadLine()

' Disconnect from POP3 server
pop.Disconnect()

' The function checks whether the message is bounced and extracts 
' failed address 
' from bounced message. Valid only for MailEnable servers
Function GetInvalidEmailAddressME(ByVal msg As MailMessage) As String
        Dim str_invalid_email As String = msg.BodyPlainText

        ' Check if this is a bounced message report
        If msg.Subject.IndexOf("Delivery Failure") = -1 Then
                Return ""
        End If
        If msg.From.ToString().IndexOf("POSTMASTER") = -1 Then
                Return ""
        End If

        ' Now we're sure this is a bounced message report
        Dim i_start As Integer, i_end As Integer
        i_start = str_invalid_email.IndexOf("SMTP:")

        ' Check if bounced message report contains "Recipient:" field
        If i_start = -1 Then
                Return ""
        End If

        ' Get failed address
        i_start += 5
        i_end = str_invalid_email.IndexOf("]", i_start)
        str_invalid_email.Substring(i_start, i_end)

        Return str_invalid_email
End Function

' The function checks whether the message is bounced and extracts 
' failed address 
' from bounced message. Valid only for Communigate Pro servers
Function GetInvalidEmailAddressCP(ByVal msg As MailMessage) As String
        Dim str_invalid_email As String = msg.BodyPlainText

        ' Check if this is a bounced message report
        If msg.Subject.IndexOf("Undeliverable mail") = -1 Then
                Return ""
        End If
        If msg.From.ToString().IndexOf("MAILER-DAEMON") = -1 Then
                Return ""
        End If

        ' Now we're sure this is a bounced message report
        Dim i_start As Integer, i_end As Integer
        i_start = str_invalid_email.IndexOf("to '<")

        ' Check if bounced message report contains 
        ' "Failed to deliver to " field
        If i_start = -1 Then
                Return ""
        End If

        ' Get failed address
        i_start += 5
        i_end = str_invalid_email.IndexOf("]", i_start)
        str_invalid_email.Substring(i_start, i_end)

        Return str_invalid_email
End Function

' This function must remove (or disable) specified
' email address from mailing list
Sub RemoveEmailFromDatabase(ByVal str_invalid_email As String)
        ' TODO: Add your code here                        
End Sub