Spam trap

A spam trap is an address run by a mailbox provider or blocklist operator to identify senders who mail people who never asked for it, or who don't maintain their lists. Traps don't sign up, buy or reply, so mail reaching them is evidence of how the list was built.

Common types: pristine traps, addresses that were never used by a real person and are often published where scrapers or list sellers will find them; recycled traps, abandoned addresses that bounced for a long period and were then reactivated to catch senders still mailing them; and typo traps, on misspelled domains like acme.cm, which catch lists that were never confirmed.

A trap accepts mail like any normal mailbox and doesn't announce itself, so no verifier can reliably identify one. Avoiding traps is about where your data comes from and how you maintain it.

Hitting traps can get your IP or domain listed and sharply lower your sender reputation. For outreach teams, the main risks are bought or scraped lists, old exports that are years out of date, and sending to addresses that bounced in the past. Google's sender guidelines tell senders not to purchase email addresses.

Skrap.ai doesn't detect spam traps, and no honest verifier can promise to. Verifying regularly still helps: it removes addresses that currently bounce before you keep mailing them, which is how recycled traps catch senders. Verify with the free email verifier, and build lists from current, relevant contacts with the email finder.