Holehe Email OSINT — Find Accounts Registered to Any Email Address

Instantly discover which of 120+ platforms an email address has a registered account on — without sending any alert, notification, or password-reset email to the target inbox. Built on the battle-tested open-source Holehe engine, this Actor delivers structured, categorized OSINT results in seconds via the Apify platform.

Whether you're running a security assessment, verifying a lead's digital footprint, or conducting an authorized OSINT investigation, this tool gives you precise, actionable intelligence across social networks, developer tools, e-commerce platforms, and more — all in one API call.

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What Data Does This Actor Extract?

Each email check returns a fully structured JSON record with per-platform results grouped by category, masked recovery data, and a clean summary array:

Field	Description
email	The email address that was checked
checkedAt	ISO 8601 UTC timestamp of the scan
totalChecked	Total platforms scanned (120+)
accountsFound	Number of confirmed registered accounts
rateLimited	Platforms that throttled the request
errors	Platforms that returned unexpected errors
accountsFoundByCategory	Account count broken down by category (social, developer, ecommerce…)
results[].name	Platform name (e.g., github, spotify)
results[].domain	Platform domain
results[].category	Category: social, developer, ecommerce, entertainment, etc.
results[].method	Detection method used (password_recovery or other)
results[].exists	true if an account was found
results[].emailrecovery	Masked recovery email (if exposed by platform)
results[].phoneNumber	Partial phone number (if exposed by platform)
results[].rateLimit	true if this platform rate-limited the check
results[].others	Any additional data the platform returned
summary.found	Array of platform names where account was confirmed
summary.notFound	Array of platform names with no account
summary.rateLimited	Array of rate-limited platform names
summary.errors	Array of platform names that errored

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Which Platforms Does This Actor Check?

The Actor checks 120+ platforms in parallel using async HTTP requests, organized into categories:

Social Networks — Instagram, Twitter/X, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest, Reddit, Tumblr, Flickr, VK, and more

Developer & Tech — GitHub, GitLab, Stack Overflow, Docker Hub, npm, Bitbucket, Gravatar, Keybase, and more

E-Commerce — Amazon, eBay, Etsy, AliExpress, and more

Entertainment & Gaming — Spotify, Twitch, Steam, Discord, Deezer, and more

Productivity & Other — Slack, Notion, Codecademy, Duolingo, LastFM, and more

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How to Use This Actor

Step 1 — Open the Actor on Apify

Go to the Actor's page and click Try for free. You don't need to install anything — the Actor runs entirely in the cloud.

Step 2 — Enter the Target Email

In the Input tab, fill in the email field with the address you want to investigate. All other inputs are optional.

Step 3 — Configure Optional Settings

Input Field	Type	Default	Description
email	String	—	Required. The email address to check
onlyUsed	Boolean	true	Return only platforms where an account was found (set to false for full results)
noPasswordRecovery	Boolean	false	Skip checks that rely on the password-recovery flow
timeout	Integer	30	Per-request timeout in seconds (10–120)
modules	Array of strings	—	Restrict the scan to specific platform names (e.g., ["github", "spotify"])

Step 4 — Run and Download Results

Click Start and wait 2–5 minutes. Results appear in the Dataset tab and are downloadable as JSON, CSV, or Excel. You can also retrieve them via the Apify API.

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Example Output

Input:

{
  "email": "test@example.com",
  "onlyUsed": true
}

Output (single dataset item):

{
  "email": "test@example.com",
  "checkedAt": "2025-06-01T14:32:00.000Z",
  "totalChecked": 123,
  "accountsFound": 7,
  "rateLimited": 2,
  "errors": 1,
  "accountsFoundByCategory": {
    "social": 3,
    "developer": 2,
    "entertainment": 1,
    "ecommerce": 1
  },
  "results": [
    {
      "name": "github",
      "domain": "github.com",
      "category": "developer",
      "method": "register",
      "exists": true,
      "emailrecovery": null,
      "phoneNumber": null,
      "rateLimit": false,
      "others": null
    },
    {
      "name": "spotify",
      "domain": "spotify.com",
      "category": "entertainment",
      "method": "register",
      "exists": true,
      "emailrecovery": "t***@g***.com",
      "phoneNumber": null,
      "rateLimit": false,
      "others": null
    }
  ],
  "summary": {
    "found": ["github", "spotify", "twitter", "instagram", "reddit", "amazon", "duolingo"],
    "notFound": ["gitlab", "docker", "etsy"],
    "rateLimited": ["facebook", "tiktok"],
    "errors": ["npm"]
  }
}

What Makes Our Output Better

Unlike tools that return only a flat list of platform names, this Actor also provides:

• accountsFoundByCategory — immediately see whether the target is primarily a developer, a social media user, or a gamer, without parsing individual results
• method field — understand how each account was detected, important for audit trails in authorized investigations
• checkedAt timestamp — every scan is time-stamped in ISO 8601 UTC, ready for logging or compliance records
• Module filtering — target only the platforms that matter for your investigation instead of scanning all 120+

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Use Cases

OSINT Investigations and Security Assessments

Map the complete digital footprint of an email address during a penetration test or threat-intelligence engagement. Identify exposed recovery emails and partial phone numbers that can inform further research.

Lead Enrichment and Sales Intelligence

Before a cold outreach, discover which professional platforms a prospect is active on. A lead with active GitHub and Stack Overflow accounts signals a developer persona; route them to the right sales sequence automatically.

Background Checks and Due Diligence

Verify the online presence of contractors, freelancers, or business partners as part of a due-diligence workflow. Connect this Actor to Zapier, Make, or n8n to automate the process at scale.

Account Recovery and Digital Forensics

Identify where an email address has been used as part of an account recovery workflow — for example, finding all accounts associated with a compromised email.

Fraud Detection and Identity Verification

Cross-reference suspicious email addresses against known platform patterns to identify newly created or throwaway accounts that lack a typical digital footprint.

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How Much Does It Cost to Run This Actor?

This Actor uses a simple pay-per-result model: $5.00 per 1,000 email scans — half the price of comparable tools.

Volume	Cost
100 emails	$0.50
1,000 emails	$5.00
10,000 emails	$50.00
100,000 emails	$500.00

Platform usage (compute) is included — you pay only the per-result fee above, nothing else. No compute unit charges, no hidden costs.

Tip: Use the modules input to restrict the scan to only the platforms you care about — this reduces runtime and delivers results faster.

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Integrate With Your Stack

API Access

Every Apify Actor exposes a REST API. Trigger a scan programmatically:

import requests

run = requests.post(
    "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/YOUR_ACTOR_ID/runs",
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN"},
    json={"email": "target@example.com", "onlyUsed": True}
).json()

print(run["data"]["id"])  # Run ID to poll for results

No-Code Automation

Connect this Actor to your existing workflows without writing code:

• Zapier — trigger on new CRM contacts, webhook events, or form submissions
• Make (Integromat) — build multi-step automation with conditional branching on account count
• n8n — self-hosted workflow automation with full JSON output access

MCP / AI Agent Integration

This Actor is compatible with the Apify MCP Server, meaning you can invoke it directly from Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or any LLM agent that supports the Model Context Protocol — no separate API call needed.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Does this Actor send any email to the target?

No. The Holehe engine checks platform registration forms and password-recovery endpoints using techniques that do not trigger any notification to the target's inbox. The target has no way of knowing a check was performed.

Is it legal to use this tool?

The legality depends entirely on your jurisdiction and your authorization to investigate the target email. This tool is intended exclusively for:

• Authorized security assessments (penetration testing with written consent)
• OSINT research on your own accounts
• Law enforcement and legal investigations with proper authority
• Academic and educational research

You are responsible for complying with applicable laws including GDPR, CCPA, DPDP, and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). Do not use this tool to investigate email addresses you do not have authorization to investigate.

How is this different from an email validator?

Email validators (syntax checks, MX record lookups, SMTP pings) tell you whether an email address exists. This Actor tells you where that address has registered accounts — a fundamentally different and more powerful capability for OSINT and digital footprint mapping.

Some platforms show as rate-limited. What does that mean?

When a platform throttles repeated requests, the Actor marks it as rateLimit: true in the results and includes it in summary.rateLimited. It does not count as a confirmed account. Re-run the Actor after a few minutes to get cleaner results for those platforms.

Can I scan multiple emails at once?

Currently each Actor run processes one email. To scan multiple emails in bulk, use the Apify Scheduler or call the API in a loop from your own script. Batch support is on the roadmap.

Why are some platforms missing from my results?

If you used the modules input to filter specific platforms, only those will appear. If a platform is missing from a full scan, it may have been removed from the Holehe module list due to a breaking change on the platform's side. Open an issue if you notice a specific platform consistently missing.

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About the Holehe Engine

This Actor is built on Holehe by @megadose, an open-source Python tool released under the MIT License. The Apify layer adds:

• Cloud execution with no local setup
• Structured, categorized JSON output (including accountsFoundByCategory and per-result category and method fields)
• REST API and webhook delivery
• No-code integrations (Zapier, Make, n8n)
• Scheduling, monitoring, and run history via the Apify console

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Support and Issues

• Bug reports / feature requests: Open an issue via the Issues tab on this Actor's page
• Questions: Use the Community tab or reach out through the Apify Discord
• Email: Contact the actor developer through your Apify account

If you find this Actor useful, please leave a star and a review — it helps other users discover it.