On the same domain name, I am currently using two OVH mail services: some addresses are hosted on MX Plan and others on Hosted Exchange.
Both services are currently set to non‑authoritative to allow this coexistence. The target for Exchange is mx1.mail.ovh.net, and for MX Plan the target is mx4.mail.ovh.net.
I am gradually removing some addresses hosted on Exchange. However, I notice that after deleting an address, an email sent to it does not generate any non‑delivery report (NDR) for the sender.
My goal is to keep some mailboxes on MX Plan and others on Exchange, but have an address that exists on neither MX Plan nor Exchange be rejected so the sender is informed that the message could not be delivered.
Would making Hosted Exchange authoritative while leaving MX Plan non‑authoritative achieve this behavior?
And most importantly, would this configuration still allow normal receipt of messages destined for addresses hosted on MX Plan?
That’s not normal. An undelivered email should always generate an error message.
One could suspect a trick by OVH to “offer” the four weeks of limbo before permanent deletion?
Can you recreate the same address on the MX Plan?
Is the absence of an NDR only for senders from your domain? Those on MX? Those on Exchange?
For the next mailbox to delete on Exchange, go through an extra step: change the mailbox name to anything (for example veronique-deleted@example.com) before deleting it.
Thank you for your feedback, the address that was deleted was on Exchange.
Once the process was validated in the table, the address became a generic name without a domain.
After that I sent an email to this deleted address, and no NDR.
I also tested sending an email to an address that never existed on this domain toto@example.com and no NDR either.
I will test the additional step by changing the name before deletion to see.
By the way, OVH doesn't call this deletion but reset... and it appears in the table under a generic name and disappears only when billing stops, in my opinion.
In fact I just tested on another OVH account that manages a different domain in MxPlan.
I sent an email to an address that was never created on that domain, and there is no NDR on receipt.
It is highly likely that this is related to the “non-authoritative”, which is responsible for sending an NDR? Normally Exchange is authoritative.
Try setting your MX to non-authoritative but this time with the address of your Exchange server as a backup server (for example ex2.mail.ovh.net, adjust to your case).
After an exchange ticket with OVH and several tests, the NDR works fine:
- Gmail address to a deleted address: NDR received
Address on OVH MX Plan to the same deleted address: no NDR
The problem therefore seems to be related to the sender address. Since it is redirected to another mailbox without keeping a copy on the MX Plan, could the redirection or an OVH filter be blocking the NDR return?
After reviewing your ticket, I see that the NDR isn’t being received because the address that should receive this NDR has a forwarding rule and the server refuses to forward the NDR
I’ve updated your support ticket; feel free to reach out to me (here or via the ticket if needed).
