Fake Email Checker: Reduce fake signups

What does Email Checker do?

Email Checker tells you if an email address is real and usable, or fake, mistyped or disposable. Paste a list of emails or give it a CSV file, and it checks each one in seconds:

• Syntax: is it a well-formed email?
• Disposable email detection: is it a temporary or throwaway address (Mailinator, YOPmail, 10 Minute Mail and thousands more)? Three maintained lists are merged, and you see which list matched.
• Domain and MX check: does the domain exist, and does it have a mail server?
• Role accounts: info@, support@, sales@, noreply@ ...
• Free providers: Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, GMX, web.de and about 31,000 more.
• Typos: gmial.com, gmail.con, hotmial.com ... with a "did you mean" fix.

Every email gets a verdict (valid, risky, invalid or disposable), a score from 0 to 100 and a reason in plain English.

Why use Email Checker?

• Clean sign-up forms and lead lists. Remove fake and throwaway emails before they reach your CRM or newsletter.
• Fewer bounces. Domains with no mail server and broken addresses are flagged as invalid.
• Fix typos. didYouMean gives you the corrected email, so you can save a real lead instead of losing it.
• Fast and cheap. No browser and no third-party API. One DNS lookup per domain, cached. 256 MB of memory is enough for 100,000+ emails.
• Honest results. It does not pretend to test the mailbox. See What it does not check.
• Pay per email. Duplicates are free.

Typical users: SaaS sign-up forms, marketers cleaning lists, sales teams checking scraped leads, fraud and trust teams.

You also get everything the Apify platform offers: API access, schedules, webhooks and integrations (Google Sheets, Make, Zapier, n8n).

What does Email Checker check?

Field	What it is
email	The email as you gave it (trimmed)
normalized	Same email with the domain in lower case
canonicalEmail	The real mailbox: John.Doe+news@Gmail.com becomes johndoe@gmail.com
domain	Domain of the email
verdict	valid, risky, invalid or disposable
score	0 to 100
reason	Why, in plain English
isValidSyntax, syntaxError	Is the email well formed, and if not, what is wrong
isDisposable, disposableSources	Temporary email, and which lists matched
hasMx, mxRecords, dnsStatus	Mail servers of the domain (up to 3) and the DNS result
isRoleAccount	Team or function mailbox (info@, support@ ...)
isFreeProvider	Free webmail (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, GMX ...)
didYouMean	Suggested fix for a typo in the domain
isAllowlisted	The domain is on your allow list

Verdicts and scores

Verdict	Score	Meaning
valid	70 to 95	Good syntax, the domain has a mail server, not disposable
risky	20 to 69	Role account, typo with a working domain, no MX (only an A record), or the DNS lookup failed
invalid	0	Bad syntax, the domain does not exist, has no mail server, or refuses email (null MX)
disposable	0 to 10	Temporary or throwaway email service

The best score is 95, not 100, because a domain check cannot prove that the mailbox itself exists.

Disposable email lists

Source	What it is
fakefilter	FakeFilter, updated daily
disposable-email-domains	The community list used by PyPI and many sign-up forms
mailchecker	MailChecker, the biggest list (about 56,000 domains)
mx-host	The domain is not on any list, but its mail server belongs to a known disposable service. Catches new throwaway domains
denylist	Your own deny list

Subdomains count too: x.mailinator.com is disposable. Big providers such as Gmail or Outlook are never marked disposable. Want fewer false alarms? Set Lists that must agree to 2.

How to check emails in bulk

1. Open the Actor and go to the Input tab.
2. Paste your Emails, one per line. Or add the link of a CSV or TXT file.
3. Optional: change the checks, add your own allow or deny list.
4. Click Start.
5. Download the results as CSV, Excel, JSON or HTML. Filter on verdict to keep only the valid ones.

Example input:

{
    "emails": [
        "info@apify.com",
        "test@mailinator.com",
        "someone@gmial.com",
        "not-an-email",
        "hello@this-domain-does-not-exist-12345.com"
    ],
    "checkDns": true,
    "roleAccountsAreRisky": true
}

A Google Sheet works as a file: use File > Share > Publish to web > CSV and paste the link in CSV or TXT file URLs. The link must open without logging in: a public link, a Google Sheets CSV link, a raw GitHub or Dropbox link, or a signed Apify storage link.

How much does it cost to check emails?

This Actor uses pay per event pricing. You pay for each unique email checked. Duplicates and empty lines are free.

Event	When you pay	Price per 1,000
email-checked	Once per unique email in the results	$0.50
apify-actor-start	When a run starts. One event per GB of memory, at least one	$1.00 (about $0.001 per run)

Example: 10,000 emails cost about $5.00.

You can set a maximum cost per run. The Actor checks your budget before each batch and stops cleanly when it is reached. You never pay for an email that is not in the results.

The Pricing tab shows the exact prices.

Input

Field	Default	What it does
emails		Emails to check
fileUrls		Links to CSV or TXT files
checkDns	true	Check the domain and its mail servers
roleAccountsAreRisky	true	Role accounts get the verdict risky
disposableLists	all 3	Which disposable lists to use
minListMatches	1	How many lists must agree
checkMxDisposable	true	Detect disposable mail servers
allowlistDomains, denylistDomains		Your own lists
dedupe	true	Check each email once
dedupeAliases	false	Also treat Gmail and Outlook aliases as duplicates
maxEmails	0 (no limit)	Stop after this many emails
dnsConcurrency, dnsTimeoutSecs, dnsServers	50, 4, default	DNS speed settings

Output

One item per unique email in the dataset:

{
    "email": "test.user@hotmial.com",
    "normalized": "test.user@hotmial.com",
    "canonicalEmail": "test.user@hotmial.com",
    "domain": "hotmial.com",
    "verdict": "disposable",
    "score": 0,
    "reason": "Disposable email domain (disposable-email-domains, mailchecker). Looks like a typo, did you mean test.user@hotmail.com?",
    "isValidSyntax": true,
    "syntaxError": null,
    "isDisposable": true,
    "disposableSources": ["disposable-email-domains", "mailchecker"],
    "hasMx": true,
    "mxRecords": ["mail.h-email.net"],
    "dnsStatus": "ok",
    "isRoleAccount": false,
    "isFreeProvider": false,
    "didYouMean": "test.user@hotmail.com",
    "isAllowlisted": false
}

A summary is saved in the key-value store as OUTPUT: counts per verdict, role accounts, free providers, typos, matches per list, duplicates removed and charged events.

Real-time API (Standby mode)

You can also call the Actor like an API, with no run to start each time. Once the Standby run is up, an answer takes about one DNS lookup, and domains already looked up are cached.

GET https://<your standby URL>/check?email=someone@example.com
GET https://<your standby URL>/check?emails=a@example.com,b@example.org
POST https://<your standby URL>/check   {"emails": ["a@example.com", "b@example.org"]}

Up to 100 emails per request. Add your Apify API token as Authorization: Bearer <token>. The Standby URL is on the API tab of the Actor. Each email costs one email-checked event.

What it does not check

Mailbox (SMTP) and catch-all checks are not done. To test a mailbox, a checker has to talk to the mail server on port 25. That port is blocked for outgoing traffic on Apify, as on most clouds, to stop spam. We tested it: from an Apify run, port 25 of the Gmail and Outlook mail servers timed out, while normal HTTPS worked. Some tools get around this with their own outside servers. This Actor runs fully on Apify and does not fake that result.

So valid means: the address is well formed, not disposable, and its domain can receive email. It does not prove that this exact mailbox exists. For most uses (sign-up forms, lead cleaning, removing fake emails) this is the part that matters, and it is much faster and cheaper.

FAQ

Is it legal to check emails? The Actor only uses public DNS records and public lists. It does not send emails or contact the mail server. Make sure you have a lawful reason to process the emails you check (for example GDPR in the EU).

How fast is it? Thousands of emails per minute. Most time goes into DNS lookups, and each domain is looked up only once per run.

A real domain is marked disposable. What can I do? Add it to the Allow list, or set Lists that must agree to 2. Please tell us in the Issues tab, so we can report it to the list.

Can I add my own throwaway domains? Yes, put them in the Deny list.

Something is wrong or missing? Open an issue in the Issues tab. We read them.