Question

This is regarding mass e-mail sending with PHP. I have to send around 10000 emails and I am using PHP mail() function inside a loop. My server sends 500 mails per hour. I would like to know what will happen to the e-mails after 500.

Answer 1

You’ll need to ask your host.

Your host probably has some intervening script such as milter-limit (http://www.milter.info/sendmail/milter-limit/) which has a range of options: including reject (you’ll probably get a message back), discard (no message) or later (temporary rejection).

I doubt a shared host would queue for later. This limit is really designed to stop spammers who may hack your account – why would they queue spammer’s emails in some automated system – they would want to intervene and delete the junk to save the reputation of the server? So I would guess “reject” or “discard”.

Alternatively, they may not have any system at all and monitor the mail queue – if it gets too long then they investigate, find the culprit and delete all their e-mails (and the account if a repeat offended / a new acccount). That’s what my host does.

But there’s only at’s a guess – check with your host.

I wouldn’t risk it in case they don’t have something automated and they do fall back on the “delete account” option.