📧 Email Validation API

Validate email addresses in bulk with comprehensive checks — no API key required. Perfect for cleaning email lists, verifying leads, and filtering out disposable or invalid addresses.

✅ What It Does

For each email address, the Actor performs:

1. Syntax Validation — RFC 5322 compliance check (format, length, special characters)
2. DNS MX Record Lookup — Verifies the domain has mail servers configured to receive email
3. Disposable Email Detection — Flags addresses from 100+ known temporary/throwaway email providers (Mailinator, Guerrilla Mail, etc.)
4. Role-Based Address Detection — Identifies generic addresses like info@, admin@, noreply@ that often don't belong to real people
5. Free Provider Detection — Flags addresses from free email services (Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, etc.)

🔧 How It Works

1. Enter your email addresses (one per line or comma-separated)
2. Configure validation options (DNS check, disposable rejection)
3. Run the Actor
4. Download results as JSON, CSV, or Excel

No external APIs or keys needed — all validation runs locally using DNS lookups and pattern matching.

📥 Input

Field	Type	Description
emails	String	Email addresses to validate (one per line or comma-separated)
check_dns	Boolean	Perform DNS MX record lookup (default: true)
reject_disposable	Boolean	Mark disposable emails as invalid (default: true)

📤 Sample Output

[
    {
        "email": "john@gmail.com",
        "is_valid": true,
        "syntax_valid": true,
        "domain": "gmail.com",
        "has_mx_records": true,
        "mx_records": "gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com, alt1.gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com",
        "is_disposable": false,
        "is_role_based": false,
        "is_free_provider": true,
        "reason": "Valid email address",
        "checked_at": "2025-01-15T10:30:00.000000"
    },
    {
        "email": "user@mailinator.com",
        "is_valid": false,
        "syntax_valid": true,
        "domain": "mailinator.com",
        "has_mx_records": true,
        "mx_records": "mail.mailinator.com",
        "is_disposable": true,
        "is_role_based": false,
        "is_free_provider": false,
        "reason": "Disposable email domain",
        "checked_at": "2025-01-15T10:30:01.000000"
    },
    {
        "email": "invalid-email",
        "is_valid": false,
        "syntax_valid": false,
        "domain": null,
        "has_mx_records": false,
        "mx_records": "",
        "is_disposable": false,
        "is_role_based": false,
        "is_free_provider": false,
        "reason": "Invalid email format",
        "checked_at": "2025-01-15T10:30:02.000000"
    }
]

💡 Use Cases

• Email List Cleaning — Remove invalid, disposable, and role-based addresses before campaigns
• Lead Verification — Validate prospect emails before outreach
• Registration Filtering — Block disposable email signups in real-time
• Data Quality — Audit and score email databases for deliverability

⚡ Performance

• Processes ~5 emails/second with DNS checks enabled
• Syntax-only mode (DNS disabled) processes thousands per second
• Uses Google and Cloudflare public DNS (8.8.8.8, 1.1.1.1) for reliable lookups

⚠️ Notes

• DNS MX checks require network access (enabled by default on Apify)
• SMTP-level verification (RCPT TO) is intentionally not included as most mail servers block or give unreliable responses
• Disposable domain list covers 100+ providers; some newer services may not be detected
• Results are point-in-time — domain DNS records can change