What’s “inactive account”?

You send a campaign, and a handful of addresses just... don't respond. No open, no bounce, nothing. Some of those contacts might have abandoned their inboxes months ago. That's what an inactive account is: an email address that nobody is logging into anymore.

Inbox providers don't let those accounts sit forever. Here's roughly what happens over time:

• 6 to 12 months of no login: The provider may start limiting functionality or sending warning emails to the address (which nobody reads).
• 12 to 24 months: The account gets suspended. You might start seeing soft bounces during this window, though some providers skip this step entirely.
• 24+ months: The account gets deleted or, more dangerously, recycled as a spam trap. At that point it silently accepts your email while reporting you to blocklist operators.

Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo Mail all recycle addresses, though their exact timelines aren't publicly documented. The safest assumption is that any address with no login activity for two years or more is a liability.

The tricky part is that you often can't tell which stage an inactive account is in just from bounce data. A suspended account might soft bounce with a temporary error, while a recycled spam trap accepts your message with a 250 OK and reports you quietly in the background. You won't see a bounce at all.

What you will eventually see is your sender reputation take a hit. Inbox providers track how often you send to addresses that show no engagement. Do it enough and your delivery rates across the whole list start to drop.

The practical fix is simple even if the execution takes discipline. Stop mailing people who haven't opened or clicked anything in six to twelve months. Run a re-engagement campaign first if you want, but be honest with yourself about the results. Anyone who doesn't respond to that gets suppressed. If your list is older and you've never done this, a proper validation pass will flag addresses that are already showing signs of inactivity or deletion.

If your list hasn't been cleaned in a while, we can take a look. RME Clean runs a full pass and flags the addresses worth keeping separate from the ones you should suppress.