| Some web hosts are set by default that any email not sent to a valid email address gets routed to a default email address, also known as a catchall. Sometimes people ask about this, concerned they may miss important emails due to typos or other errors on the part of the sender.
GKH does NOT set up catchalls by default. Why? The vast majority of what ends up in a catchall email account is spam. Spammers routinely select a valid domain name, and send off their messages to common names at that domain in the hopes of getting a hit. There's no cost to them for sending the email, after all. Only the poor server takes a performance hit processing the gunk. So a catchall email address may get multiple spams per round: sales@, support@, admin@ bob@, mary@, etc., etc.
In addition to putting extra load on the server, folks also have an understandable tendency to mostly abandon an email address taken over by spammers. So the spam just sits, filling up your alloted storage space. Over time, the number of emails collected simply becomes massive. If allowed to continue long enough, backups become less reliable and other problems can start to appear. So abandoning a spamtrap email address is not the best long-term strategy.
The likelihood you'll miss legitimate, misaddressed email is relatively low. Legitimate senders should receive a bounce message when their email is misdirected, letting them know there was a problem. The likelihood your catchall email eventually becomes a spam-trap, however, is approximately 100%. That's why it's not recommended.
 photo credit: david ॐ
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