| Orange | |
|---|---|
| Domains | orange.fr, wanadoo.fr |
| Mail routing | smtp-in.orange.fr and smtp-in2.orange.fr for both orange.fr and wanadoo.fr, in September 2026. French lists often file laposte.net under Orange, and it doesn't belong there: its MX sits in La Poste's own namespace. |
| What we can resolve | We resolve some mailboxes here |
How Orange answers a probe
What the server does when we open a connection and ask about one address.
- Unknown local parts return a 550 with French-language text in some responses, which is worth handling if you parse the message body.
- Connections from outside France are limited more tightly than domestic ones, and the limit is enforced rather than advisory.
- The wanadoo.fr domain carries the oldest accounts, dating to the pre-2006 dial-up era.
- Orange blocks aggressively at the connection level when it dislikes a sending IP, in the manner of a US cable ISP.
The part that catches people out
What we do about it
We pace probes to Orange's limits and read the numeric code rather than the French text, so a localised message never changes the verdict. Where the connection is limited we report unknown and name the throttle.
Sending to Orange mailboxes
Verification is one step. These are the things that decide whether the message lands.
- French consent rules and CNIL expectations are strict in practice, and documented opt-in matters for this audience.
- Orange's filtering reacts to complaint volume quickly, and recovery is slow.
- A French consumer list without orange.fr and free.fr addresses is likely incomplete.
Two French refusals that mean different things
Orange labels many of its SMTP replies with a short tag that starts with OFR. Say you're reading a bounce log after a send to 2,500 orange.fr and wanadoo.fr subscribers. One group of failures carries an invalid-recipient message in French and English, a 550 in front, and a tag such as OFR_416. Another group says "Trop de connexions", too many connections, slow down, with a different OFR tag and a 421 in front.
The first group is about mailboxes, and those rows should be suppressed. That second group is about you: too many simultaneous connections from your sending IP. Nothing is wrong with those subscribers, and a rule that suppresses on any failure will quietly remove them. Sort by the three-digit code first and the tag second. Lower your connection count to Orange, and retry the 421 rows later.
laposte.net is not an Orange domain
French lists often get sorted into "Orange and friends", and laposte.net tends to land in that pile. It doesn't belong there, and the DNS shows why. On September 19, 2026, orange.fr and wanadoo.fr both returned smtp-in.orange.fr and smtp-in2.orange.fr. laposte.net returned smtpz4.laposte.net, the French postal service's own mail system, with its own limits and its own filtering. sfr.fr answers on smtp-in.sfr.fr, separate again.
So pacing that keeps Orange happy says nothing about what La Poste will tolerate, and a block at one doesn't predict a block at the other. When results on a French list look uneven, split the report by MX host before you draw conclusions. A segment labeled French ISPs can hide three or four operators with different rules. If you only have time for one check, count the distinct MX hosts behind your French rows. More than two means your single French segment is really several.
Questions people ask
Can orange.fr addresses be verified?
Yes, when the connection gets through. Orange rejects unknown recipients properly. The limiting factor is their tolerance for foreign connections rather than their honesty.
What is wanadoo.fr?
Orange's earlier consumer internet brand. The domain was kept alive after the rebrand, so wanadoo.fr addresses still work and are usually twenty years old.
Do French-language error messages affect the result?
No. The numeric response code carries the meaning and the text is decoration. We read the code.