unverified

The mailbox could not be confirmed

The domain accepts mail and nothing else argued against the address, but the mailbox handshake ran and the server would not say whether this inbox exists, so the verdict is risky rather than a guess at deliverable.

appears in: reason
verdict: risky
risk weight: +10
credits: 1 credit like any risky answer, except smtp_reason provider_unavailable, which is free and never cached: the next lookup of that address probes again.

What it means

A probe was sent and came back without a yes or a no: the server deferred the connection (greylisting), went silent (timeout), refused or could not be reached (no_connect, mx_unreachable), or the handshake partner itself was unavailable (provider_unavailable). smtp_reason names which. smtp_checked is false, mailbox_exists is null, and the unverified weight of 10 is added to the risk score.

mailbox_confidence estimates the odds that the specific mailbox exists from the signals already in the answer: DMARC and SPF, the mail provider, the registration age, the shape of the username, and your own delivery feedback for the domain. Confirmed mailboxes answer deliverable, catch-all domains answer catch_all; unverified is the honest state in between.

What to do

Send with care and branch on mailbox_confidence, or re-verify later: repeats of the same address are free for 7 days, and a callback_url on the lookup settles the answer automatically after 5 and 20 minutes.

Example response

{
    "email": "[email protected]",
    "deliverable": "risky",
    "reason": "unverified",
    "smtp_checked": false,
    "smtp_reason": "greylisted",
    "mailbox_exists": null,
    "mailbox_confidence": 62
}

Abbreviated: a real answer carries all 27 fields, listed in the verify-email reference.

markdown version: /docs/reasons/unverified.md

unverified

What it means

What to do

Example response

Related