Quick Tour of MailBounce

Hello, and welcome to MailBounce! This file provides a brief description MailBounce, and also describes how to quickly set up and operate the program. The MailBounce Description file contains a more detailed functional description of MailBounce, and includes more information on some of the advanced features. Refer to the documentation provided with the application for more information on how to get the most out of MailBounce.

MailBounce is a comprehensive bounce-management solution for Internet mailing lists; it will recognize and process the mail bounces that are returned from defunct (dead) e-mail addresses on the mailing list, as well as addresses that are bouncing for "transient" reasons. MailBounce will track the bouncing addresses, and will remove them from the mailing list once they have exceeded one or more "bounce thresholds" that you have selected -- that is, they will be removed once they have bounced for a sufficiently long time that you can be reasonably certain that the addresses really are undeliverable, and not bouncing because of a temporary or intermittent delivery problem.

MailBounce currently runs on Macintosh, Unix, and Windows platforms. However, it does not matter what platform your mailing list is hosted on -- MailBounce is designed to be run "off line" from the mailing list, which means that you do not have to run it on the same type of machine as your list server. For example, your list can be hosted on a Lyris server running on a Solaris box, and you can process your bounces on a Macintosh (or Windows) computer with no problem.

MailBounce has some very powerful features; to utilize the program to its fullest capacity, you should read through the documentation provided in the distribution. The purpose of this file is simply to familiarize you with the general operation of the program. The description is for the "Pro" version of the program; please refer to the MailBounce Pro documentation for information on the features that are specific to the Pro version.

Processing Flow (Background)

Next, MailBounce processes your bounce file, sorting all recognized messages into four categories: "hard" bounces (i.e., fatal bounces), "soft" bounces (transient/temporary bounces), "redirects" (bounces that provide a new mailing address for the recipient; MailBounce will optionally unsubscribe the old address and subscribe the new one), and "unsubscribes" (requests from users who wish to unsubscribe from the list).

Each bounce is tracked over time, and is checked against user-selectable bounce-tracking thresholds to determine if it is a defunct address. If the address has exceeded a bounce-tracking threshold, it is marked for removal from the mailing list.

Finally, MailBounce compares all expired bounces against your subscriber list to ensure that they really are on your list; it will also "fuzzy match" the bounce addresses to the subscriber addresses, accounting for differences in address formats -- e.g., "user@isp.com" vs. "user@mail.isp.com" (and lots of other formatting differences, too). MailBounce then generates a set of output files containing administrative unsubscribe requests for all of the "defunct" addresses; the files are pre-formatted for your list server, and can be sent directly to the server. (MailBounce can also update your subscriber file directly.)

Quick Setup and Processing

If you have just recently downloaded MailBounce, then you have a baseline Preferences file inside the same folder or directory as the program, itself; the Preferences file is named "MailBounce Preferences" on the Macintosh, "MailBounce.ini" in Windows, and ".mailbounce.cf" on Unix machines. This file comes pre-configured with "typical" file names for some of the more common files; you can later change them to more convenient names if you prefer. For now, though, we'll stick with the default file names.

Step 1: Your Bounce File

Move your bounce file into the same folder or directory as the MailBounce program (and baseline Preferences file), and change the name of the bounce file to "bounces.txt". (Windows users: Because the Windows operating system may "hide" file extensions from you, it is important to ensure that you do not accidentally name the file "bounces.txt.txt"; check the file's properties to be sure.)

Step 2: Your Subscriber List

Now move the file containing your subscriber list (i.e., the list of all your subscribers' addresses) into the folder or directory where MailBounce is located, and change the name of the file to "subscribers.txt". (Same warning to Windows users applies here.) If you do not have a local copy of your subscriber list, you can usually request it from your list server via a "who" or "review" command; see your list server documentation for details.

Step 3: Your List Server Type

MailBounce can format its output files for many different types of list servers. The default list server is "Majordomo"; if you are not using Majordomo, then you will need to tell MailBounce which type of list server you are using so that it can create the correct output files. To do this, open the Preferences file (named "MailBounce Preferences" on the Macintosh, "MailBounce.ini" in Windows, and ".mailbounce.cf" on Unix machines), and locate the line that starts with "list server type". Inside the apostrophes should be the word "majordomo". Replace the word "majordomo" with the type of list server you are using. (If you are using a Majordomo list server, then there is no need for you to change this setting.) Valid names include 'Lyris', 'LISTSERV', 'ListProc', 'LetterRip', 'ListSTAR', 'Macjordomo', and lots of others; refer to the Preferences file here for a complete list of recognized server types.

Be sure to save the file before you exit.

Step 4: Press the "GO" Button!

Launch (run) the program. MailBounce will read in your bounce file, will sort all bounces into "hard," "soft," etc.; it will then match all of the addresses against your subscriber list, and will create pre-formatted "server" and "BCC" files.

Step 5: Using the Server and BCC Files

The "server" file contains all of the unsubscribe (or delete) commands that will remove the defunct addresses from your mailing list; the name of this file is "mailbounce_server_file.txt", and it will be located in the same folder as the MailBounce application.

The "BCC" file contains the same list of defunct addresses as the server file, but they are organized as a comma-separated list, which you can simply copy and paste into your e-mail client if you want to notify the deleted users that they have been removed from your mailing list. (The reason for doing this is that some ISPs will return bounce messages for fully functional addresses; informing the subscribers that they've been removed allows those with functioning addresses to resubscribe to the mailing list.) The name of this file is "mailbounce_BCC_file.txt", and will be located in the same folder as the MailBounce application. We provide a sample notification message that you can customize to your needs.

All done!

Getting More from MailBounce

What if MailBounce doesn't recognize one of my bounces?
If you are a registered user, then you should fill out the "New Bounce" submission form.

What if MailBounce doesn't support my list server?
Refer to the New_Server file for detailed instructions on how to submit new server formats for inclusion in upcoming releases.

MailBounce Updates

Macintosh: StuffIt archive (file extension .sit)

Windows: Zip archive (file extension .zip)

Unix: gzipped tar archive ("tarball," file extension .tgz)

Macintosh users: There is a single MailBounce application included in the standard Macintosh distribution; this application will run under both OS 9 and OS X. For OS X users who are comfortable working in the Unix shell, note that there is also a Darwin release. The OS X/Darwin distribution can be found with the other Unix distributions.

Notifications of Updates

Feedback!

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