How to Simulate Bounce, Complaint, and Reject in AWS SES

Takahiro Iwasa

2/21/2021

2 min read

SES

This note describes how to simulate SES bounce, complaint and reject. Fore more details, refer to the official documentation.

Prerequisites

Ensure you have completed the following steps before starting:

Register an email address in your AWS SES.
Enable Email Feedback Forwarding for the registered email address.

Email Feedback Forwarding Setup

Simulating Bounce

Use the following command to simulate a bounce:

aws ses send-email \
  --from <YOUR_EMAIL> \
  --to [email protected] \
  --subject test \
  --text test

You will receive an email at the address specified by the --from option, indicating a bounce occurred.

Bounce Simulation Example

Simulating Complaint

Use the following command to simulate a complaint:

aws ses send-email \
  --from <YOUR_EMAIL> \
  --to [email protected] \
  --subject test \
  --text test

An email indicating a complaint will be sent to the --from address.

Complaint Simulation Example

Simulating Reject

To simulate a reject, send an email with an EICAR test file attachment using the following script:

FROM=<YOUR_EMAIL>
MESSAGE='{"Data": "From: $FROM\nTo: $FROM\nSubject: test\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-type: Multipart/Mixed; boundary=\"NextPart\"\n\n--NextPart\nContent-Type: text/plain\n\ntest\n\n--NextPart\nContent-Type: text/plain;\nContent-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"sample.txt\"\n\nX5O!P%@AP[4\\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*\n\n--NextPart--"}'
MESSAGE=$(echo $MESSAGE | sed "s/\$FROM/$FROM/g")
aws ses send-raw-email \
  --cli-binary-format raw-in-base64-out \
  --raw-message "$MESSAGE"

You will receive a rejection notification email at the FROM address.

Reject Simulation Example