November 14, 2022 — Imagine a waitress that drops off your food then immediately puts on noise cancelling headphones and gives you the middle finger. That's the experience you are providing your customers every time you send an email message from a noreply email address. I cannot think of a single valid reason to ever send an email from a noreply address. It takes extremely little code to route any responses appropriately.
Either do the work to send emails that can be replied to or don't send emails.
My war against no reply email addresses begins. Anytime someone sends a message to me now from a noreply address they get this as a response, in addition to other actions.
Join the fight against noreply email addresses.
My Gmail filter
Below is my Gmail filter. Paste it into brecksFilter.xml then go to Settings > Filters > Import filters. Join the fight to save email and restore human decency!
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<feed xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom' xmlns:apps='http://schemas.google.com/apps/2006'>
<title>Mail Filters</title>
<id>tag:mail.google.com,2008:filters:z0000001668441215282*0601353100407184173</id>
<updated>2022-12-30T11:45:22Z</updated>
<author>
<name>Breck Yunits</name>
<email>breck7@gmail.com</email>
</author>
<entry>
<category term='filter'></category>
<title>Mail Filter</title>
<id>tag:mail.google.com,2008:filter:z0000001668441215282*0601353100407184173</id>
<updated>2022-12-30T11:45:22Z</updated>
<content></content>
<apps:property name='from' value='noreply@* | no-reply@* | donotreply@*'/>
<apps:property name='label' value='NoReplySpam'/>
<apps:property name='cannedResponse' value='tag:mail.google.com,2009:cannedResponse:18562d933868aa1a'/>
<apps:property name='smartLabelToApply' value='^smartlabel_promo'/>
<apps:property name='sizeOperator' value='s_sl'/>
<apps:property name='sizeUnit' value='s_smb'/>
</entry>
<entry>
<category term='cannedResponse'></category>
<title>WarOnNoReplyEmailAddresses</title>
<id>tag:mail.google.com,2009:cannedResponse:18562d933868aa1a</id>
<updated>2022-12-30T11:45:22Z</updated>
<content type='html'><div dir="ltr"><div>Never send an email from a "no reply" email address.</div><div><br></div><div>Inform your tech team to rethink their design.<br></div><div><br></div><div>It's bad customer service and like sending this:</div><div><br></div><div><br></div>....................../´¯/) <br>....................,/¯../ <br>.................../..../ <br>............./´¯/'...'/´¯¯`·¸ <br>........../'/.../..../......./<wbr>¨¯\ <br>........('(...´...´.... ¯~/'...') <br>.........\.................'..<wbr>.../ <br>..........''...\.......... _.·´ <br>............\..............( <br>..............\.............\.<wbr>..<br><div><br></div><div>Learn more: <a href="https://breckyunits.com/replies-always-welcome.html" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://breckyunits.com/replies-always-welcome.html&source=gmail&ust=1672487122927000&usg=AOvVaw0wFT8VqAmM0qZqE3xQY_Cl">https://breckyunits.com/<wbr>replies-always-welcome.html</a></div><div><br></div></div>
</content>
</entry>
</feed>
Specific examples
Again, there is never a valid reason to have a no reply email address. Here are some examples, showing how in every case you can deliver a better customer experience without the noreply email. A great opportunity to get customer feedback!
My bank (Bank of Ireland) sends automated bi-monthly statements using noreply@boi.com
Bank of Ireland could instead end each email with a question such as "Anything we can do better? Let us know!" or "If you have any issues you need help with reply to start a new case!"
I follow many profiles on LinkedIn which sends me an occasional email on activities and updates that I might have missed using notifications-noreply@linkedin.com
Could be even as simple as replyWithAnythingToUnsubscribe@linkedin.com. Any replies will cause the account to stop receiving such notices.
GitHub sends me occasional emails about 3rd-party apps that have been granted access to my account using noreply@github.com
Could be a replyToDeauthorize@github.com instead.
Google Maps sends monthly updates on my car journeys via noreply-maps-timeline@google.com
Could be a replyToStopTracking@google.com
Monthly newsletters to which I am subscribed via LinkedIn come in via newsletters-noreply@linkedin.com
Could be a replyToUnsubscribe
e-Books available from a monthly subscription are available on noreply@thewordbooks.com
Could be a replyToLeaveAReview.