What I actually want is for procmail to exit with a status of 69, instead of 0, for a given address. I tried this:

:0 * ^From:.*<address here>.* EXITCODE=69

...but that didn't seem to do it.

Nope. Variable assignments as a result of recipe-hit must be in braces. Also add a HOST, to quit procmail processing immediately: :0 * your condition { EXITCODE=69 HOST } To keep a backup copy of dumped msgs (always a good idea), use: { :0c: somefile.backup EXITCODE=69 HOST } And if you are using this to generate "unknown user", the number for sendmail is 67, and it discloses your ~/.forward file (which makes a farce out of the "unknown user" to a knowledgable person). Volker