[20years]

You can configure your email sending with a reply-to email (example [e-mail]) and not have auto replies or bounces go to that reply-to address.

The auto replies will go to the envelope sender email. I prefer to set that to something like [e-mail] rather than [e-mail] because noreply just looks so unfriendly.

Replies from real people will go to the reply-to email ([e-mail]) and bounces/auto-replies will go to the sender address ([e-mail]). You can then write a script that automatically clears the auto-replies and handles the bounces from the [e-mail] inbox.

This will allow you to still handle real customer inquiries that come into the reply-to email without being bombarded with bounces and auto-replies.

[gertef]

why wouldn't auto-replies go to the reply-to address?

[20years]

You control this using the Return-Path option in your email headers.

[lstamour]

There are common clues an email is an auto-response, too — from timestamp to headers: https://github.com/jpmckinney/multi_mail/wiki/Detecting-auto...