What is a Delivery Status Notification?
A Delivery Status Notification (DSN) is an automated message that email servers can send back to a sender to confirm what happened to an outgoing email at the server level. It is a feature that works in the background between mail servers which most users will never need or notice its absence.
DSN is different from simply seeing that your email has been sent by your mail client. It is also different from a read receipt. A DSN only tells you whether your message was successfully handed off to the recipient's mail server, not whether the recipient has opened or read it. Additionally, a DSN only works if the receiving mail server supports it. The receiving mail server can also choose to ignore it in which case you will not receive a DSN notification.
There are two types of DSN notifications:
- Successful delivery: a confirmation that your email has been accepted by the receiving mail server. This is sometimes referred to as a "positive DSN.".
- Delivery failure: if something goes wrong during delivery (for example, if the recipient's server rejects the message), a DSN returns an error notice to the sender. This is the more familiar "bounce message" that you may have encountered.
DSN is currently not available on TransIP Email Hosting
DSN is not supported on our email platform at this time. This is a server-side feature and not something that can be enabled from within the control panel.
If you are expecting to receive DSN notifications after sending emails via our platform, please be aware that this is a known limitation and DSN notifications are not supported. Regular "bounce messages" of course are supported.