Disposable Email Detector - Block Temp & Throwaway Emails

Stop burner signups before they hit your database. Check emails or domains against a 7,582-domain disposable blocklist plus keyword and pattern heuristics - up to 500 per run, online, by API, or as an agent tool via Apify MCP.

Temp-mail users skew every metric you care about: fake trials, poisoned lead lists, review fraud, bonus abuse. This actor normalizes each input to its domain, checks the embedded blocklist (with parent-domain walking, so anything.mailinator.com matches mailinator.com), applies throwaway-keyword and random-pattern heuristics, and whitelists ~30 known legitimate webmail providers to keep false positives down.

What you get

• isDisposable - the verdict, from combined blocklist + heuristics
• confidence - 0 to 1 (blocklist hit = 0.99, keyword = 0.9, random-pattern = 0.6)
• matchedList - the exact blocklist domain or heuristic that fired
• reasons - every signal: blocklist, keyword:tempmail, random-looking, no-mx, known-provider
• hasMx - optional live MX check (checkMx: true)
• Fail-soft: an invalid email/domain never fails the run - it returns {ok: false, error} and is never charged.

Input

{ "emails": ["user@mailinator.com", "jane@gmail.com"], "maxItems": 100 }

Also accepts email (single), domains (array), domain (single) - mix freely.

Output (real run)

{
  "input": "user@mailinator.com",
  "domain": "mailinator.com",
  "ok": true,
  "isDisposable": true,
  "matchedList": "mailinator.com",
  "confidence": 0.99,
  "reasons": ["blocklist", "keyword:mailinator"],
  "checkedAt": "2026-08-07T21:29:03.190Z"
}

jane@gmail.com comes back isDisposable: false with reason known-provider.

Pricing

$0.0005 per email/domain checked. No start fee. Invalid inputs are never charged.

Measured against store incumbents (2026-08-07): dev00/email-verifier-api charges $0.001 per item, scrapemint/email-list-checker $0.002 per email, dev00/dropinbox $0.005 per query. A 10,000-address list here costs $5 across runs - half the cheapest measured alternative.

Honest limits

• Blocklists age: new burner domains appear daily. The heuristics catch many unlisted ones (keywords, random patterns), but no detector is exhaustive - treat confidence as a signal, not gospel.
• Verdicts are domain-level. A disposable domain means every address on it is disposable; a clean domain does not prove the specific mailbox exists (pair with an MX/mailbox verifier for that).
• checkMx does live DNS and slows bulk runs; it only ever raises suspicion (no MX), never marks a domain clean.

FAQ

What blocklist is used? The canonical open disposable-email-domains list plus curated extras - 7,582 domains embedded at build time, checked with parent-domain walking.

Will it flag Gmail/Outlook/Proton users? No - ~30 major legitimate webmail providers are explicitly whitelisted, and heuristics are skipped for them.

What does confidence 0.6 mean? The domain matched only the weakest signal (random-looking label, e.g. xk29fjqz.com). The default verdict threshold is 0.6, so such domains are flagged - filter on higher confidence if you want only blocklist/keyword hits.

Can I run my whole signup list? Yes - up to 500 per run (maxItems), one record per input, duplicates removed. Split larger lists across runs.

Why did some rows come back ok: false? Those inputs could not be parsed into a valid domain. Recorded for completeness, never charged.

When not to use this

• You need to know whether a mailbox exists. This answers "is this domain a burner provider", not "will mail to this address bounce". For deliverability you want an SMTP/mailbox verifier; run this first as the cheap pre-filter, then verify only what survives.
• You need syntax validation. Malformed addresses come back ok: false rather than with a detailed parse error. Validate format in your own form first - it is free and instant.
• You want to block all free webmail. Gmail, Outlook, Proton and ~30 other legitimate providers are deliberately whitelisted and will always return isDisposable: false. If your policy is "business domains only", that is a different check.
• You need a guaranteed-complete blocklist. New burner domains appear daily and the list is embedded at build time. Treat confidence as a signal you tune a threshold against, not a verdict you bet a chargeback on.
• You are checking a handful of addresses by hand. At this scale a browser tab is free. This earns its keep on lists, signup hooks and agent tool-calls.

Use from code or AI agents

curl -s "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/EliAI~disposable-email-detector/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -X POST -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"emails": ["signup1@tempmail.dev", "signup2@gmail.com"]}'

Agents: connect Apify MCP and call the EliAI/disposable-email-detector tool.

• Capability: classify one or many emails/domains as disposable vs legitimate, with confidence and reasons
• Required input: emails/email or domains/domain
• Returns: one JSON record per input; isDisposable + confidence summarize the verdict
• Bounded: maxItems caps the run; failures isolate per input
• Side effects: none (no DNS unless checkMx: true)