What it means
Catch-all acceptance can make SMTP checks inconclusive at the mailbox level. GTMAPIs represents that uncertainty as risky rather than converting it into valid.
All concepts
Email validation semantics
Risky catch-all email
A risky catch-all result means the domain accepts broadly enough that mailbox-level certainty is not available from standard validation alone.
Canonical status
risky
Status language is backed by the shared validation result contract and product publish gates.
Quality signals
- risky
- catch-all
- not high-value
Recommended actions
- Do not mark as valid
- Send only with caution or route to recovery
- Keep standard catch-all handling non-chargeable by default where policy applies
Recommended routing
Use catch-all signals to decide whether to suppress, manually review, or opt into Premium Catch-All Recovery. Recovery does not change the canonical validation status.
Contract behavior
risky is a canonical status in the public validation contract. A risky result is never high-value regardless of other signals, and validation summaries count it in its own bucket with a separate catch_all counter for catch-all signals.
- Never classified as high-value
- Own bucket in validation summaries
- catch_all is tracked as a separate counter from the status itself
Detection vs recovery boundary
Standard validation detects catch-all behavior and reports the uncertainty. Premium Catch-All Recovery is a separate opt-in step that adds confidence and recommended-action fields on top, without sending verification emails or rewriting risky to valid.
- Detection is part of standard validation
- Recovery is opt-in and additive
- Canonical status stays risky either way
Related resources
Common questions
Does risky mean invalid?
No. Risky means the result is uncertain or unsuitable for default high-value classification, especially when catch-all behavior is present.
Are risky catch-all results charged?
Credits are consumed only for chargeable high-value validations, and risky results are never high-value. Standard catch-all handling stays non-chargeable by default where the credit policy applies.
Can a risky catch-all become valid?
Not through recovery. Recovery adds routing confidence and a recommended action while the canonical validation status preserves the catch-all uncertainty.