# Email Pattern Finder - Work Email Lookup by Name & Domain (`appdata-labs/email-pattern-finder`) Actor

Work out the likely work email for a person at a company. Give it a name and a company domain and it returns ranked candidates with the naming pattern behind each one, plus a real DNS check on whether the company accepts mail at all. Candidates are labelled as candidates, never as confirmed finds.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/appdata-labs/email-pattern-finder.md
- **Developed by:** [Kobkoon Janngam](https://apify.com/appdata-labs) (community)
- **Categories:** Agents, MCP servers, Lead generation
- **Stats:** 1 total users, 0 monthly users, 0.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$5.00 / 1,000 contact resolveds

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Email Pattern Finder — the likely work address, labelled as likely

**Give it a name and a company domain, get the addresses that person probably has.** Ranked by how common each naming convention actually is, with a real DNS check on whether the company accepts mail at all.

**Quick start:** press **Start** with no configuration. It ships with ten sample contacts so one run shows you the whole output shape — including a dead domain and a free mailbox provider, so you can see how it handles both. Then paste in your own list.

### Sample output

| fullName | domain | bestCandidate | candidateCount | domainAcceptsMail | mxHost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jane Doe | stripe.com | jane.doe@stripe.com | 5 | true | aspmx.l.google.com |
| Wei Chen | cloudflare.com | wei.chen@cloudflare.com | 5 | true | mailstream-central.mxrecord.io |
| Ana Silva | nosuchdomain-xyz-98765.com | — | 0 | false | — |

Every row also carries `firstName`, `lastName`, `domainStatus`, `domainReason`, `isDisposable`, `isFreeProvider`, `mailboxChecked`, `confirmedAddress`, `note`, and a `candidates` array where each entry has the `email`, the `pattern` that produced it (`first.last`, `flast`, …) and that pattern's real-world frequency.

### Why this one

**A candidate is not a find, and this Actor never pretends otherwise.** Most tools in this market return one address and call it "found". Without a mailbox-level check that is a guess wearing a fact's clothing, and the buyer learns which it was when the message bounces. Here `confirmedAddress` stays `null` until a mail server has actually accepted the address, and `note` says in plain English what the row does and does not prove.

**The ranking is published, not hidden.** Each candidate names its pattern and how common that pattern is, so you can disagree with the order instead of inheriting it. If you know the company uses `flast`, you can see which candidate that is.

**The domain check is real.** One DNS lookup per company establishes whether the domain exists, whether it publishes MX records, and whether it is a disposable or free-mail provider. A company that cannot receive mail returns zero candidates and says why, rather than eleven addresses that will all bounce.

**A free mailbox provider is answered honestly.** `gmail.com` has no company convention to infer — addresses there are whatever the person chose at signup. The row says so instead of quietly generating patterns that carry no signal.

**Names are handled the way mail servers handle them.** Accents are folded (`José` → `jose`), punctuation is stripped (`O'Brien` → `obrien`), middle names are dropped rather than guessed at, and a single-word name yields only the patterns that do not need a surname.

### What you can do with it

- **Reach a named prospect** you found on LinkedIn, a conference page or a press release, where you have the person and the company but no address.
- **Fill gaps in a CRM export** — the contacts whose email field is empty.
- **Enrich a list before a campaign**, then pass the candidates through a verifier to rank them.
- **Feed an AI agent.** Rows are about 1 KB, identically shaped, and every claim is scoped to what was actually checked.

### Input

| Field | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| `contacts` | 10 samples | `First Last, company.com`. A comma, an `@`, a pipe or plain whitespace all work as the separator, and a full URL is accepted instead of the domain. |
| `checkMailbox` | `false` | Ask the company mail server which candidate is real. See the limit below. |
| `maxCandidates` | `5` | Five covers roughly four in five real conventions. |
| `onlyDeliverableDomains` | `false` | Drops companies that cannot receive mail. You are charged per row returned, so this is the cheaper way through a long list. |
| `concurrency` | `10` | Parallel lookups. DNS resolvers start refusing above about thirty. |

### The limit worth knowing before you buy

**Outbound port 25 is blocked on most cloud platforms, including this one.** That means the SMTP mailbox check usually cannot run, and when it cannot, the row says so — `mailboxChecked` stays `false` and the run summary carries `mailboxCheckBlockedReason`. It never upgrades a guess to a find because the check was unavailable. Leave `checkMailbox` off unless you know your account can open port 25.

What this Actor proves without it is still substantial: that the company exists, that it accepts mail, which server handles it, and which addresses are worth trying in which order.

### Pricing

Pay per person returned. People removed by your filters are not charged, and duplicates are dropped before anything is counted.

### Disclaimer

This Actor generates addresses from naming conventions and checks public DNS
records. It scrapes no website and calls no third-party API — there is no
database of people behind it and none is consulted.

It returns candidates about a named person at a named company, supplied by you.
Sending unsolicited mail is regulated in most jurisdictions — GDPR in the EU,
CAN-SPAM in the US, PDPA in Thailand among them — and complying with the rules
that apply to you is your responsibility, not this Actor's.

# Actor input Schema

## `contacts` (type: `array`):

One person per entry, as "First Last, company.com". A comma, an @, a pipe or plain whitespace all work as the separator, and a full careers URL is accepted in place of the domain.

## `checkMailbox` (type: `boolean`):

Off by default. When on, candidates are tried in order against the company mail server and probing stops at the first acceptance. Cloud hosts commonly block outbound port 25 — when that happens the row says so rather than upgrading a guess to a find.

## `maxCandidates` (type: `integer`):

How many patterns to generate, most common first. Five covers roughly four out of five real-world conventions; going higher mostly adds addresses nobody uses.

## `onlyDeliverableDomains` (type: `boolean`):

Drops people whose company domain does not exist or publishes no MX record. You are charged per row returned, so this is also the cheaper way to work through a long list.

## `concurrency` (type: `integer`):

How many lookups run in parallel. DNS resolvers start refusing above about thirty.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "contacts": [
    "Jane Doe, acme.com",
    "John Smith @ example.io"
  ],
  "checkMailbox": false,
  "maxCandidates": 5,
  "onlyDeliverableDomains": false,
  "concurrency": 10
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `rows` (type: `string`):

One row per person: the ranked candidate addresses, the pattern behind each, and what the DNS check proved about the company domain.

## `summary` (type: `string`):

How many company domains accept mail, how many were skipped, and whether the mailbox check was actually possible.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "contacts": [
        "Jane Doe, stripe.com",
        "John Smith, shopify.com",
        "Maria Garcia, vercel.com",
        "Wei Chen, cloudflare.com",
        "Amara Okafor, gitlab.com",
        "Lukas Muller, figma.com",
        "Priya Sharma, linear.app",
        "Tom Brady, notion.so",
        "Ana Silva, nosuchdomain-xyz-98765.com",
        "Cher, gmail.com"
    ],
    "checkMailbox": false,
    "maxCandidates": 5,
    "onlyDeliverableDomains": false,
    "concurrency": 10
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("appdata-labs/email-pattern-finder").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "contacts": [
        "Jane Doe, stripe.com",
        "John Smith, shopify.com",
        "Maria Garcia, vercel.com",
        "Wei Chen, cloudflare.com",
        "Amara Okafor, gitlab.com",
        "Lukas Muller, figma.com",
        "Priya Sharma, linear.app",
        "Tom Brady, notion.so",
        "Ana Silva, nosuchdomain-xyz-98765.com",
        "Cher, gmail.com",
    ],
    "checkMailbox": False,
    "maxCandidates": 5,
    "onlyDeliverableDomains": False,
    "concurrency": 10,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("appdata-labs/email-pattern-finder").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "contacts": [
    "Jane Doe, stripe.com",
    "John Smith, shopify.com",
    "Maria Garcia, vercel.com",
    "Wei Chen, cloudflare.com",
    "Amara Okafor, gitlab.com",
    "Lukas Muller, figma.com",
    "Priya Sharma, linear.app",
    "Tom Brady, notion.so",
    "Ana Silva, nosuchdomain-xyz-98765.com",
    "Cher, gmail.com"
  ],
  "checkMailbox": false,
  "maxCandidates": 5,
  "onlyDeliverableDomains": false,
  "concurrency": 10
}' |
apify call appdata-labs/email-pattern-finder --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,appdata-labs/email-pattern-finder"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/HiwhRZth8454sk1R0/builds/KNicDKXDaX04JyyGG/openapi.json