Amazon SNS Notification Contents for Amazon SES

Bounce, complaint, and delivery notifications are published to Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) topics in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format. The top-level JSON object contains a notificationType string, a mail object, and either a bounce object, a complaint object, or a delivery object.

See the following sections for descriptions of the different types of objects:

The following are some important notes about the contents of Amazon SNS notifications for Amazon SES:

Top-Level JSON Object

The top-level JSON object in an Amazon SES notification contains the following fields.

Mail Object

Each bounce, complaint, or delivery notification contains information about the original email in the mail object. The JSON object that contains information about a mail object has the following fields.

The following is an example of a mail object that includes the original email headers. When this notification type is not configured to include the original email headers, the mail object does not include the headersTruncated, headers, and commonHeaders fields.

{
   "timestamp":"2016-01-27T14:05:45 +0000",
   "messageId":"000001378603177f-7a5433e7-8edb-42ae-af10-f0181f34d6ee-000000",
   "source":"john@example.com",
   "sourceArn": "arn:aws:ses:us-west-2:888888888888:identity/example.com",
   "sourceIp": "127.0.3.0",
   "sendingAccountId":"123456789012",
   "destination":[
      "jane@example.com"
   ],
   "headersTruncated":false,
   "headers":[ 
      { 
         "name":"From",
         "value":"\"John Doe\" <john@example.com>"
      },
      { 
         "name":"To",
         "value":"\"Jane Doe\" <jane@example.com>"
      },
      { 
         "name":"Message-ID",
         "value":"custom-message-ID"
      },
      { 
         "name":"Subject",
         "value":"Hello"
      },
      { 
         "name":"Content-Type",
         "value":"text/plain; charset=\"UTF-8\""
      },
      { 
         "name":"Content-Transfer-Encoding",
         "value":"base64"
      },
      { 
         "name":"Date",
         "value":"Wed, 27 Jan 2016 14:05:45 +0000"
      }
   ],
   "commonHeaders":{ 
      "from":[ 
         "John Doe <john@example.com>"
      ],
      "date":"Wed, 27 Jan 2016 14:05:45 +0000",
      "to":[ 
         "Jane Doe <jane@example.com>"
      ],
      "messageId":" custom-message-ID",
      "subject":"Hello"
   }
}

Bounce Object

The JSON object that contains information about bounces will always have the following fields.

If Amazon SES was able to contact the remote Message Transfer Authority (MTA), the following field will also be present.

If a delivery status notification (DSN) was attached to the bounce, the following field may also be present.

The following is an example of a bounce object.

{
   "bounceType":"Permanent",
   "bounceSubType": "General",
   "bouncedRecipients":[
      {
         "status":"5.0.0",
         "action":"failed",
         "diagnosticCode":"smtp; 550 user unknown",
         "emailAddress":"recipient1@example.com"
      },
      {
         "status":"4.0.0",
         "action":"delayed",
         "emailAddress":"recipient2@example.com"
      }
   ],
   "reportingMTA": "example.com",
   "timestamp":"2012-05-25T14:59:38.605Z",
   "feedbackId":"000001378603176d-5a4b5ad9-6f30-4198-a8c3-b1eb0c270a1d-000000",
   "remoteMtaIp":"127.0.2.0"
}

Bounced Recipients

A bounce notification may pertain to a single recipient or to multiple recipients. The bouncedRecipients field holds a list of objects—one per recipient to whom the bounce notification pertains—and will always contain the following field.

Optionally, if a DSN is attached to the bounce, the following fields may also be present.

The following is an example of an object that might be in the bouncedRecipients list.

{
    "emailAddress": "recipient@example.com",
    "action": "failed",
    "status": "5.0.0",
    "diagnosticCode": "X-Postfix; unknown user"
}

Bounce Types

The following bounce types are available. We recommend that you remove the email addresses that have returned bounces marked Permanent from your mailing list, as we do not believe that you will be able to successfully send to them in the future. Transient bounces are sent to you when all retry attempts have been exhausted and will no longer be retried. You may be able to successfully resend to an address that initially resulted in a Transient bounce.

Complaint Object

The JSON object that contains information about complaints has the following fields.

Further, if a feedback report is attached to the complaint, the following fields may be present.

The following is an example of a complaint object.

{
   "userAgent":"AnyCompany Feedback Loop (V0.01)",
   "complainedRecipients":[
      {
         "emailAddress":"recipient1@example.com"
      }
   ],
   "complaintFeedbackType":"abuse",
   "arrivalDate":"2009-12-03T04:24:21.000-05:00",
   "timestamp":"2012-05-25T14:59:38.623Z",
   "feedbackId":"000001378603177f-18c07c78-fa81-4a58-9dd1-fedc3cb8f49a-000000"
}
            

Complained Recipients

The complainedRecipients field contains a list of recipients that may have submitted the complaint.

JSON objects in this list contain the following field.

The following is an example of a Complained Recipient object.

{ "emailAddress": "recipient1@example.com" }

Complaint Types

You may see the following complaint types in the complaintFeedbackType field as assigned by the reporting ISP, according to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority website:

Delivery Object

The JSON object that contains information about deliveries will always have the following fields.

The following is an example of a delivery object.

{
   "timestamp":"2014-05-28T22:41:01.184Z",
   "processingTimeMillis":546,
   "recipients":["success@simulator.amazonses.com"],
   "smtpResponse":"250 ok:  Message 64111812 accepted",
   "reportingMTA":"a8-70.smtp-out.amazonses.com",
   "remoteMtaIp":"127.0.2.0"
}