Glossary / Spam trap
What is Spam trap?
A spam trap is an email address created or recycled to catch senders using bad lists. Mail to one is strong evidence you did not collect permission.
Some addresses exist only to catch careless senders. Anti-spam organizations plant them where scrapers will find them. Mailbox providers also recycle long-abandoned addresses into traps.
Nobody can sign up for a trap, which is the whole point. If your email arrives at one, you either scraped the address, bought it, or kept sending to something that stopped existing years ago.
You cannot see traps on your list, and no tool removes them reliably. The only defense is prevention: collect addresses yourself, confirm them, and retire the ones that go quiet.