PURPOSE: To reduce the labor of the coding work of an operator for reject mail.

CONSTITUTION: This device is provided with a reading means 11 for reading a mail image, recognizing means 15 for recognizing an address from the read mail image while referring to a prescribed character dictionary/address dictionary, data base 32 for storing the relation of correspondence between an address recognition incompleteness answer showing that the address can not be completely recognized by the recognizing means 15 and address information (such as a really existent address, full name or name) corresponding to this incompleteness answer, retry means 31 for retrying the address recognition based on the address recognition incompleteness answer while referring to the stored contents in the data base 32, display means 4a for displaying a few of address recognized answer candidates close to the address recognition incompleteness answer when the complete address recognized answer can not be provided even after retry, selecting means 4b for selecting the correct address recognized answer out of a few of displayed address recognized answer candidates, and sorting means 14 for sorting mail based on the selected address recognized answer candidate or the address recognized answer recognized by the recognizing means 15.