Many modern list servers provide the capability to block certain addresses from subscribing to your mailing list. However, not all list servers have this feature -- and, even when present, it is often on a list-by-list basis, making it rather inconvenient to block an address across a large number of mailing lists. MailBounce's answer to this problem is the "Global Remove" file.

In its simplest form, the Global Remove file is simply a collection of addresses that you want MailBounce to remove (unsubscribe) from your mailing list(s) if they are found on the list(s). These addresses might be problem subscribers, or problem ISPs, or automated list-archiving services that you do not want to have archiving your mailing list. Any Global Remove addresses that are found on your mailing list during the address matching phase will be immediately unsubscribed. (If you do not perform address matching, then the global Remove addresses will be automatically appended to the server file, ensuring their removal from the list if they are present.)

To use the Global Remove file, you must (1) be a Pro user, and (2) have:

a valid Global Remove file (see below)
the Global Remove filename properly entered in your Preferences file
the use global remove file setting in your Preferences file set to YES

Global Remove File Format

Addresses specified in the Global Remove file are case insensitive (that is, you may use upper case, lower case, or mixed case). Each line in the Global Remove file is formatted as follows:

[keyword] <address> [comment]

where:

The "keyword" is either "BCC" or "NOBCC", and tells MailBounce whether you want the address to be included in the BCC file if the address is found on your mailing list (and unsubscribed).
The keyword is optional; if you do not include either "BCC" or "NOBCC", then MailBounce will default to "NOBCC" -- that is, the address will not be included in your BCC file if it is found on your mailing list.
The keyword is not case sensitive; you may enter either "BCC" or "NOBCC" in upper case, lower case, of mixed case.
Other valid keyword formats are "no BCC", "no BCC file", "BCC file", etc.
The address must be enclosed in angle brackets, as shown.
Addresses are not case sensitive; that is, you may enter them in upper case, lower case, or mixed case.
Addresses may contain a single asterisk "*" as a wildcard (see below).
Anything to the right of the address is a comment, and is ignored by MailBounce.
Spacing is irrelevant, as are blank lines and extra spaces/characters between keywords.
Any line that does not contain angle brackets (i.e., does not contain an address) is treated as a comment line.

So, for example, here are a few lines of a sample Global Remove file:

no BCC        <problem_member@*.yikes.com>    Anything to the right of
BCC      <autoresponder@domain.co.uk>      the address is a comment

Everything appearing on a line that contains no angle brackets
   is considered to be a comment, and is ignored.

BCC  <willy@whitehouse.gov> This address will be included in the BCC file
                               if it is found in your subscriber list and
                                 is unsubscribed

no BCC   <al.gore@whitehouse.gov>  This address will not be included in
                                     the BCC file if it is found in your
                                       subscriber list.

      <listarchiver@domain.com>  This address will not be included
                                           in the BCC file if it is found
                                              in your subscriber list.

Placing the keywords to the left of the address allows the file to be nicely formatted, which can make it easier to read. Thus, the sample file shown above could be reformatted to look like this:

no BCC  <problem_member@yikes.com>   Anything to the right of
BCC     <autoresponder@domain.co.uk> the address is a comment

BCC     <willy@whitehouse.gov>       This address will be included in
                                     the BCC file if it is found in your
                                     subscriber list and unsubscribed.

no BCC  <al.gore@whitehouse.gov>     This address will not be included
                                     in the BCC file if it is found in
                                     your subscriber list.

        <listarchiver@domain.com>    This address will not be included
                                     in the BCC file if it is found in 
                                     your subscriber list.

                                     Blank lines are ignored, as are
                                     lines with no valid addresses on
                                     them.

Though the second format is much easier to read, MailBounce will process both example files in the same manner.

Note that the number of addresses you may specify in the Global Remove file is limited by only the available memory.

Wildcards

Wildcards may be used in Global Remove addresses. The only recognized wildcard is an asterisk, and you may use only one per address. When MailBounce encounters a wildcard in an address, it will allow zero or more characters to "match" the wildcard. For example, if you specify <johndoe@*mailbounce.biz>, the following addresses will be removed:

            johndoe@mailbounce.biz
            johndoe@smtp.mailbounce.biz
            johndoe@anything.you.can.put.here.mailbounce.biz
            johndoe@anotherdomainthatendsinmailbounce.biz

Take a close look at that last address; it has matched a different domain than the one that was intended in the example. To limit searches to only the exact domain specified, place a period after the asterisk. Thus, <johndoe@*.mailbounce.biz> would match the first three addresses listed above, but not the fourth.

As another example, specifying <johndoe*@mailbounce.biz> would match the following addresses:

            johndoe@test.mailbounce.biz
            johndoe%local-gateway@mailbounce.biz

Alternatively, <johndoe*mailbounce.biz> would catch all of the addresses shown above.

For more extreme forms of matching, you can have MailBounce unsubscribe any address that starts with, for example, "johndoe" by specifying <johndoe*>. Or unsubscribe any address that has "johndoe" (exactly) as the local-part of the address (i.e., the part to the left of the "@" sign) by specifying <johndoe@*>. Or tell MailBounce to remove any address in the .MIL domain by specifying <*.mil>; similarly, <*.mailbounce.biz> would instruct MailBounce to ignore all addresses in the mailbounce.biz domain, including all subdomains.

The processing is case independent, so you may use upper, lower or mixed case in addresses, according to your own preference.

Global Remove-Address Matching

When it finds an address in your subscriber file that matches a Global Remove address, MailBounce will display a notification in the diagnostics file:

  problem_subscriber@rmi.com.sg (A. Smythe)
    EXACT MATCH (Global Remove):
        <problem_subscriber@rmi.com.sg>

MailBounce will process the Global Remove file even if there are no bounces to remove from the list; this ensures that your Global Addresses are handled regardless of whether you have any bounces to process. Also, note that the Ignored file "overrides" the Global Remove file; thus, if an address is present in both files, it will not be removed from your mailing list.

[home]

[ReadMe]