# Catch a dropping domain automatically > When you add a watch, choose how InfraNest should try to get the name when it drops — so you don't have to be at your keyboard at the moment it becomes free. Source: https://infranest.io/docs/catch-a-dropping-domain Last updated: 2026-09-14 --- This guide is for anyone who's watching a domain that's about to expire and wants InfraNest to try to grab it the moment it becomes available. ## Overview - When you add a watch, you choose how InfraNest should try to catch the name when it drops, so you don't have to be online at the exact moment. - You can just get notified, have InfraNest register it automatically through your own registrar, or use a backorder service for contested names. - The watch page keeps you updated with an estimated drop date, what will happen at the drop, and the current status the registry reports. ## Choose how to catch it 1. On the add-watch screen, pick one of three modes (you can also change this later from **Change strategy** on the watch itself): - **Just alert me** — you get notified the instant it's available and register it yourself. - **Register with my own registrar** — InfraNest auto-registers it through your connected registrar accounts. - **Use a backorder service** — a specialist service (Dynadot) tries to catch it for you ahead of the drop. Best for contested names; you only pay if it wins. ![Catch a dropping domain automatically](/media/da424cdd-c320-4bf9-8c37-45a458b0e69f) ## Register with your own registrar 1. Open the watch, click **Change strategy** and choose **Register it for me**. 2. Choose your registrars in order — a target and one or more backups. If the first can't register it, InfraNest falls through to the next. Each registrar shows its standard price for the ending, first year and renewal, where it publishes one. 3. Pick the registrant contact to use, and fill in any extra details the domain ending requires. Some endings have rules about who may hold them — `.eu` needs an EU/EEA registrant, `.de` an administrative contact with a German address — and InfraNest flags those on the tab. 4. Check the catch-readiness panel — it's green when everything's in place, or shows a checklist of what's still missing. When the domain drops, InfraNest confirms it's available, registers it, adds it to your domain portfolio, and logs every attempt. ## What the watch page tells you The **At the drop** panel on the watch always says what will happen when the name is released: the mode you chose, the registrars in the order they'll be tried, and the contact the domain will be registered to. If it says *We can only notify you*, the catch isn't set up yet. Above it, **Expected drop** is an estimate with a margin, not a fixed appointment — registries delete names in batches: - **in 12 days** — the estimate is still ahead. - **Any time now** — the moment has arrived and the name can be released at any point. We're checking at the shortest interval; nothing for you to do. - **Later than expected** — it's past the whole estimated window and the registry still hasn't deleted the name. The watch keeps running, and eases off its checking rate as the estimate ages, tightening again the moment the registry status changes. **Next check** says *Due now* when the check is queued and about to run. ### Why the wait is so different from one ending to the next How long a name takes to become free after it expires is set by the organisation that runs the ending, and the answer ranges from days to months. A `.es` is gone about 10 days after it expires. A `.com` takes around 80. A `.uk` is 95. A `.no` is closer to 150 — five months of waiting on a name whose owner stopped paying on day one. So a drop date that looks far away usually isn't a mistake, and one that looks close doesn't mean the owner only just let go. It's the ending's own timetable. For most endings we hold the operator's published timings and use them. Where we don't, the watch says so — "We hold no confirmed deletion timings for .xyz, so this date is estimated from the usual timings" — and you should treat that date as a rough guide rather than a plan. Either way the watch keeps checking, and it checks hardest as the estimate approaches, so an estimate being a few days out doesn't cost you the name. ### Where the dates on the timeline come from Only two of them are facts we read from the registry: Registered and Expired. The rest used to be arithmetic on the expiry date — and the biggest number in that arithmetic was a guess, because once a domain expires it is the registrar who decides when, in the following 45 days or so, to actually delete it. Nothing about the expiry date says which. So when the registry tells us the date it deleted a name, we use that instead and measure everything after it from there. When that happens the watch says "The registry deleted it on 19 August, so the dates after Expired are measured from then rather than estimated from the expiry." That is the difference between a timeline you can check and one you have to trust. If the registry ends up holding a name longer than our timings allow, the page says that too, rather than leaving a drop date sitting in the past as though it still meant something. ### Some endings auction a name instead of releasing it On a few endings, the moment the registry lets go is not the moment you can register the name: - **`.ai`** — it enters a 14-day auction open only to registrars, at a price that falls each day. It reaches ordinary price at the end, and the watch tells you that date. - **`.ca`** and **`.cz`** — the name is allocated at a scheduled registry auction. Only names nobody bids on come back to general availability, shortly afterwards. The watch says so on the page, and it factors this into the odds rather than promising you a good chance at something that is going to auction. It also aims its final burst of checks at the moment a registration can actually succeed rather than at the auction opening. ### `.uk` is exact Nominet publishes the precise second each pending-delete `.uk` name is released, so for those the watch shows their time rather than our estimate — no margin, because none is needed. The **record** panel shows what the registry currently says about the name — including its status in plain words ("Pending delete", "No nameservers") rather than registry codes. Hover a status to see the original code if you need it for a support ticket. ## Place a backorder instead 1. For a contested name, choose **Use a backorder service** and pick your connected Dynadot account. 2. InfraNest places the backorder ahead of the drop; Dynadot does the catching and, if it wins, deposits the domain into your funded Dynadot account, which InfraNest then imports for you automatically. You only pay if the backorder wins. > [!NOTE] > A backorder needs a connected Dynadot integration with funds in the account, and is a premium feature. ## Alerts You're notified at each key moment — dropping soon, available, went to auction, caught or failed — through your alert destinations (email, Slack, Telegram) and your outbound webhooks, so your own tools can react too. *Dropping soon* means the estimated drop is genuinely within about a week. It used to fire when a name entered the registry's pending-delete stage, which on some endings is still a month from the end — so on those you were told a name was dropping soon long before there was anything to do. > [!NOTE] > The readiness check runs ahead of time so a catch never fails at the last second for a missing contact detail or required field. It tells you three different things, and only the first one stops a catch: - **Something is missing** — an incomplete registrant contact, or a required field for the ending. Fix it before the drop. - **We couldn't check** — your registrar didn't answer when we asked what the ending requires. Nothing is known to be missing, but the registrar can still refuse. - **A backup needs more** — a backup registrar asks for details the target doesn't. Those fields belong to that registrar and can't be filled in from here, so if the catch falls through to it, it will fail. Reorder your registrars, or catch through the one you've filled in. ## Tips - The prices shown are each registrar's standard rate for the ending, not a quote for this domain: a dropped name can be priced as premium by the registry, and taxes aren't included.