What does each bulk task status mean? (pending / processing / completed / failed)

Every bulk verification task in Valid Email Checker moves through a small set of statuses from the moment you click Start to the moment you download results. Knowing what each one means tells you whether to wait, take action, or open a support ticket.

Pending

The task has been accepted and credits have been deducted, but the verification engine has not started processing the addresses yet. This is a short window — usually a few seconds — between task creation and the first batch entering the verification pipeline. You see a yellow Pending badge with a small spinner on the Uploads & Results page.

Processing

The task is actively being verified. The verification engine is running addresses through our 11-step pipeline (DNS lookup, MX record check, SMTP probe, mailbox tests, and so on), and results are streaming back in real time. The progress bar fills as addresses complete. You see a blue Processing badge with a spinner. This is the longest state in the task lifecycle. If it stalls, see why is my bulk task stuck on Processing.

Completed

Every address in the task has been processed. The results table is fully written to your account, the summary counts are computed, and the View Results button on the row is enabled. You also get an email letting you know the task is done. A Completed badge is green with a checkmark. A small variant of Completed exists for tasks with a partial failure (some chunks failed and credits were partially refunded) — same green badge, plus a small warning icon and a tooltip showing how many emails could not be processed and how many credits were refunded.

Failed

The task could not finish. This is rare and usually triggered by every verification batch failing to submit (a provider outage, a malformed request, or our backend rejecting the work entirely). When a task fails, we automatically refund the credits for any addresses that were not verified. The badge is red with an X icon. The task row stays visible on Uploads & Results so you can see what happened.

Deleted (a sub-state of Completed)

After 15 days, completed task results are removed from our database per our retention policy. The task row stays on Uploads & Results with a gray Deleted badge — you can still see metadata (list name, date, total emails, summary counts) but the per-address results are gone. This is shown as a separate filter option on the Uploads & Results page.