Relayed messages are part of the specification for delivery status notifications (DSNs), more commonly referred to as delivery receipts. When a message is sent with a delivery receipt request, there are a handful of possible receipts:
- Failed - This indicates that the message could not be delivered to the target recipient.
- Delivered - This indicates that the message was successfully delivered to the target recipient's mailbox.
- Forwarded - This indicates that the message was automatically forwarded before the target recipient saw the message. This is generally due to some sort of rule the target recipient has configured.
- Relayed - This indicates that the destination server or gateway indicated during the SMTP session that it does not handle DSN requests but did accept the original message for the target recipient. This can happen if any server in the delivery chain, including an outbound gateway, indicates that it does not support DSN requests. If you are using an outbound gateway, I recommend making sure that it is configured to support DSN requests.
With this in mind, there are two things that can be done to prevent these messages from being generated:
- Disable DSN messages (Settings > Protocols > SMTP In card > Enable Delivery Status Notifications) This would prevent your server from generating any DSN messages for all domains.
- Advise your users to not request delivery receipts when sending messages to users that they typically receive these messages for.
Andrew Barker
Software Developer
SmarterTools Inc.
www.smartertools.com