handling bounce email w/phpmailer

Question

I have a webpage that sends out emails using phpmailer. I set the host to 'relay-hosting.secureserver.net' the mail->sender, mail->from and mail->addReplyTo all to the same address, which is the address that I want the bounced email notifications sent to. This email address in also with the same host and the smtp host. When I put in a bad email address I don't get a notification that is was not delivered. What am I doing wrong? Thanks

Answer 1

PHPmailer does not handle receiving emails. It's purely a library for allowing PHP to talk to an SMTP server for sending emails. It has absolutely no support whatsoever to act as a mail client (e.g. receiving).

PHPmailer has no way of knowing the email bounced, as the bounce occurs LONG after PHPmailer's handed the email off to the outgoing SMTP server. IN real world terms, PHPmailer takes your letter and walks down the block to drop it into a mailbox. The bounce occurs later, when the letter carrier brings the letter back with 'return to sender' stamped on it - PHPmailer is not involved in this at all.

Your options are:

1) Use PHP's imap functions to connect to an existing pop/imap server and retrieve emails that way
2) Use a .forward or similar redirect on the SMTP side to "send" incoming email to a PHP script.

Answer 2

I know this is an old and answered question, but for those who may find this post later with a similar problem you might be able to solve this by going to your smtp mail relay service. If for example you use jangosmtp there is an option in your jangosmtp control panel to either hard code the address to which bounce reports should be sent or to always send bounce reports to the From address.