The process of rejecting the attempted delivery of an email message. Sometimes a stylized "bounce report" email message reports that a previous message couldn't be delivered. A bounce may be a "soft bounce," in which case the sending computer can retry the delivery later, or a "hard bounce," in which case the delivery is a failure. A soft bounce may occur because the recipient's mailbox is full, the server is overloaded or there are other temporary problems. A hard bounce most often occurs because the recipient address is invalid or the recipient host, by policy, rejects mail from that sender.

An email that does not reach the end recipient and is returned to sender. Misspelling of the name or an incorrect address will cause a bounce. Emails can also bounce if the size of the attached file exceeds a set limit by your ISP. "Hard" bounces are caused by invalid email addresses, whereas "soft" bounces are due to temporary conditions, example being mailbox is full.

Number of e-mail messages that were unable to get past the recipient's e-mail server because of a delivery error, such as a full mailbox, or an expired or incorrect e-mail address. (see Hard/Soft bounce)

Bounces is a 1986 sports/fighting game released for the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum.