Soft bounce replies do not return to the Reply To address

We recently experience this seemingly for the first time. We have a “From” generic address on purpose to avoid spamming our CSMs inbox. So this wasn’t a good experience for them to get all these bounce/out of office emails just because they were set as the reply-to.

Just happened to us, too.  Please fix this!

This is 100% a normal behavior. Unfortunate, but expected when dealing with email systems.

Our workaround is to create a pooled email sender profile (close to the preferred sender’s name) for those mass-sends, but otherwise we just say “please filter by subject line and delete your inbox spam.”

See the response from ChatGPT below on the why:

Bounces and Out-of-Office (OOO) emails go to the sender's email address (From address) instead of the Reply-To address because:

1. SMTP Protocol Behavior:

   • When an email is sent, the envelope sender (Return-Path) is used for delivery errors and bounces, not the Reply-To address.

   • Mail servers return non-delivery reports (NDRs) to the Return-Path (which is typically the From address).

2. Reply-To is for Human Replies:

   • The Reply-To field is only used when a recipient manually replies to the email.

   • Automated responses like bounces and OOO messages follow SMTP rules and use the Return-Path.

3. Security & Anti-Spam Measures:

   • Allowing bounces to go to Reply-To could be abused for spam and phishing.

   • Servers ensure undeliverable messages return to the actual sender (Return-Path), not a potentially spoofed Reply-To.