# Email hygiene

Form Plume email hygiene flags or blocks disposable, malformed, and non-receiving email addresses using syntax, domain, and blocklist checks.

Email hygiene checks whether a submitted address is real and reachable: it validates syntax, confirms the domain receives email, detects known disposable providers, and applies your own [blocked domains](/docs/spam-protection/blocklists). An address can look valid and still be useless.

A domain can receive SMTP mail through explicit MX records or, when no MX is published, through the implicit-MX fallback to a resolvable A or AAAA host. A Null MX record explicitly declares that the domain accepts no email.

## Choose flag or block

**Flag** keeps the submission but adds the result to its [spam score](/docs/spam-protection/scoring). This is safer when every lead matters.

**Block** rejects the submission before it reaches the inbox. Use it when invalid or disposable addresses have no value to your workflow.

Temporary DNS failures fail open. A provider outage should not make a valid person lose their message.

Email hygiene improves the quality of submitted addresses. It does not prove that the person owns the mailbox.