An example on how to use the Dead Letters Channel in Akka. See article http://danielasfregola.com/2015/05/04/akka-dead-letters-channel/

deadLettersChannelExample.scala

import akka.actor._

class EchoActor extends Actor {

  def receive = {
    case msg => println(s"${self.path.name} - New msg received: $msg")
  }

}

object Main extends App {

  implicit val system = ActorSystem("dead-letters-usage-example")

  val deadLettersSubscriber = system.actorOf(Props[EchoActor], name = "dead-letters-subscriber")
  val echoActor = system.actorOf(Props[EchoActor], name = "generic-echo-actor")

  system.eventStream.subscribe(deadLettersSubscriber, classOf[DeadLetter])

  echoActor ! "First Message"
  // generic-echo-actor - New msg received: First Message
  
  echoActor ! PoisonPill
  echoActor ! "Second Message"
  // dead-letters-subscriber - New msg received: DeadLetter(Second Message,Actor[akka://dead-letters-usage-example/deadLetters],Actor[akka://dead-letters-usage-example/user/generic-echo-actor#317003256])
  // INFO  [RepointableActorRef]: Message [java.lang.String] from Actor[akka://dead-letters-usage-example/deadLetters] to Actor[akka://dead-letters-usage-example/user/generic-echo-actor#317003256] was not delivered. [1] dead letters encountered. This logging can be turned off or adjusted with configuration settings 'akka.log-dead-letters' and 'akka.log-dead-letters-during-shutdown'.

  system.deadLetters ! "Dead Message"
  // dead-letters-subscriber - New msg received: DeadLetter(Dead Message,Actor[akka://dead-letters-usage-example/deadLetters],Actor[akka://dead-letters-usage-example/deadLetters])
  // INFO  [DeadLetterActorRef]: Message [java.lang.String] from Actor[akka://dead-letters-usage-example/deadLetters] to Actor[akka://dead-letters-usage-example/deadLetters] was not delivered. [2] dead letters encountered. This logging can be turned off or adjusted with configuration settings 'akka.log-dead-letters' and 'akka.log-dead-letters-during-shutdown'.
}