Email Finder & Verifier

Find and verify business email addresses via pattern inference, MX lookup, and SMTP handshake. Detects disposable domains, role accounts, and free providers. No API key, no browser, no external service.

What does Email Finder & Verifier do?

Three modes:

• Find email for a person — pass { firstName, lastName, domain }, get verified candidate emails generated from 15+ common corporate patterns, each tested against the domain's MX server via a live SMTP handshake.
• Verify email addresses — pass a list of emails, get syntax validation, MX resolution, live SMTP verification, disposable-domain detection, role-account detection, and free-provider classification.
• Generate candidate patterns for a domain — inspect a domain's email infrastructure: MX hosts, disposable status, and the full set of pattern candidates with sample names.

Every check runs on open protocols: DNS for MX records, SMTP for live mailbox verification. No API keys, no third-party verification service, no browser.

Output fields

Email verification

Field	Description
email	The address checked
valid	true only when the receiving MX server accepts the recipient
syntaxOk	RFC 5321 syntax check
domain	Domain part
mxHosts	MX hosts resolved for the domain
isDisposable	Temporary/disposable domain flag (list of 30+ providers)
isRoleAccount	info@, sales@, support@, etc.
isFreeProvider	Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, Proton, iCloud, etc.
smtpVerdict	valid / invalid / unknown
smtpResponseCode	Raw SMTP response code
smtpResponse	Raw SMTP response string
error	Human-readable reason when not resolved

Find mode

Adds person: { firstName, lastName, domain } and returns only candidates that pass SMTP or return "unknown" with MX records — invalid candidates are filtered out.

Patterns mode

One record per domain: MX hosts, disposable status, and the full candidate pattern list from sample first/last name.

Who is it for?

• Sales and SDR teams enriching prospect lists with verified business emails
• Recruiters finding corporate emails for candidates and hiring managers
• Growth and cold-outreach teams replacing paid verification services with a self-hosted check
• Data quality teams cleaning CRM lists — invalid and disposable emails flagged before import
• Researchers mapping email infrastructure across companies and industries

Pricing

$1.50 per 1,000 results. No subscription.

Results	Cost
100	$0.15
1,000	$1.50
10,000	$15.00

How to use it

1. Pick a Mode.
2. Fill in the mode's inputs: people, emails, or domains.
3. Set SMTP MAIL FROM (defaults to a safe placeholder).
4. Set Max Concurrency (default 5) — higher values risk tripping mail-server rate limits.
5. Click Start.

Output example

{
  "recordType": "email-candidate",
  "email": "tim.cook@apple.com",
  "valid": false,
  "syntaxOk": true,
  "domain": "apple.com",
  "mxHosts": ["mail-in.apple.com"],
  "isDisposable": false,
  "isRoleAccount": false,
  "isFreeProvider": false,
  "smtpVerdict": "unknown",
  "smtpResponseCode": 550,
  "smtpResponse": "550 5.1.1 recipient rejected",
  "person": { "firstName": "Tim", "lastName": "Cook", "domain": "apple.com" },
  "error": "",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-21T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Technical details

• No API key, no external verification service. All checks run on open protocols.
• DNS via Cloudflare (1.1.1.1) and Google (8.8.8.8) public resolvers.
• SMTP handshake: connect to the highest-priority MX, HELO, MAIL FROM:<synthetic>, RCPT TO:<target>, read the server's response. A 250 or 251 is a valid mailbox; a 5xx is invalid; anything else is treated as unknown.
• 15+ pattern templates per person: first.last, firstlast, flast, first.l, first_last, last.first, and more.
• Disposable-domain detection against a built-in list of 30+ providers (mailinator, guerrillamail, 10minutemail, yopmail, etc.).
• Role-account detection against a list of 40+ prefixes (info, sales, support, admin, hr, billing, etc.).
• Free-provider classification for Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, Proton, iCloud, Fastmail, Zoho, and others.
• No proxy required. DNS and SMTP work from datacenter IPs.

Known limits

• Many mail servers do not answer SMTP probes reliably. Gmail, Outlook, and most large providers return catch-all or "unknown" responses to any probe. The actor flags these as smtpVerdict: "unknown" rather than forcing a verdict. Treat valid: false with smtpVerdict: "unknown" as "cannot determine" — not "definitely invalid."
• Catch-all domains accept every address. The actor does not currently detect catch-all status (this would require probing two random addresses, doubling the run cost). A valid verdict on a catch-all domain does not guarantee the address reaches a specific person.
• SMTP probes can be rate-limited. Most mail servers block after a few connections from the same IP. Keep maxConcurrency low (5 is safe) and avoid running huge batches against a single domain.
• Syntax check is regex-based, not a full RFC 5321 parser. It accepts 99.9% of real-world addresses but may reject exotic edge cases.
• No SMTP probe is 100% reliable. Even a 250 response from the server can be misleading if the server accepts then bounces.

FAQ

Do I need an API key? No. All checks run on open DNS and SMTP protocols.

Do I need a proxy? No. Datacenter IPs work.

Why do Gmail addresses come back as "unknown"? Gmail does not answer SMTP probe requests. This is normal — treat "unknown" as "likely valid but unconfirmed."

Can you detect catch-all domains? Not in this version. Catch-all detection requires probing two random addresses per domain and would double the run cost.

Is this legal? Email verification via SMTP handshake is a standard technique used by every commercial email-verification service. The actor does not send actual email — it only opens the RCPT TO dialogue and reads the server's response, then disconnects.

How do I export data? After a run, go to Storage → Export as JSON, CSV, Excel.

Support

Open an issue on the Actor's page for bugs or feature requests.