How to detect auto responders

StackOverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1604221

  •  05-07-2019
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Question

I have written a php e-mail processing client that uses the IMAP protocol.

I noticed that it processes auto responders like normal e-mails which is undesirable. Is there something in the mail header that would indicate that the e-mail is not from a human but from an auto/vacation responder?

Any help would be appreciated.

Was it helpful?

Solution

There is no 100% reliable way to do this. However, automated messages should have an empty (<>) Envelope-From header (that's the RFC821 "MAIL FROM" header, not the RFC822 "From:" header).

How you determine what the Envelope-From header is from the messages you retrieve via IMAP will depend on your mail server implementation.

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