Email List Cleaner: Dedupe, Typo Fix, Disposable & Role Filter

Bulk email list cleaner and validator: fixes typos like gmial.com, removes duplicates, flags disposable, role and free-provider addresses, and checks MX records so domains that cannot receive mail are dropped.

Clean a messy email list before you send, import or verify it. Duplicates are merged including Gmail dots and +tags. No external service is involved: normalisation, typo repair, de-duplication and flags run on built-in code and lists; the only network use is one DNS lookup per domain.

Before and after

A real run on a 34-row list (the INPUT.json in this repo):

As submitted	Cleaned	What happened
Maria.Gonzalez@GMAIL.com	maria.gonzalez@gmail.com	trimmed, lowercased; 2 duplicates merged (maria.gonzalez@gmial.com, m.a.r.i.a.gonzalez+news@gmail.com)
john.smith@hotmail.con	john.smith@hotmail.com	TLD typo corrected (correctedFrom keeps the old value); merged with John.Smith@Hotmail.com
jan.jansen@outlok.com	jan.jansen@outlook.com	typo corrected
"Tomáš Koutný" <tomas.koutny@lyfeoffshore.com>	tomas.koutny@lyfeoffshore.com	address extracted from the display-name form
mailto:support@apify.com	support@apify.com	unwrapped; flagged role_address
info@bücher.de	info@xn--bcher-kva.de	internationalised domain converted to punycode
someone@mailinator.com	unchanged, usable: false	disposable_domain
bob@thisdomaindoesnotexist-xyz123.com	unchanged, usable: false	no_domain (DNS says it does not exist)
example@example.com	unchanged, usable: false	null_mx (the domain publishes RFC 7505 "no mail here")
alex..dot@gmail.com, bob@, not an email	unchanged, usable: false	bad_local, empty_domain, missing_at

Run summary for that list: 34 rows → 28 unique, 18 usable — 5 duplicates merged, 1 blank row skipped, 4 invalid, 4 typos corrected, 3 disposable, 3 domains without a mail server, 7 role addresses, 9 free-provider addresses, 15 domains looked up.

What it does

• Normalises case, whitespace, Name <a@b.com>, mailto:, stray quotes and trailing punctuation; converts internationalised domains to punycode; checks syntax (local part, labels, TLD, lengths).
• Fixes typos in domains: a list of common slips (gmial, hotmial, yahho, outlok, iclod…), TLD slips (.con, .cmo, .ocm…), and one-edit matches against big providers (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Outlook, iCloud, Proton). It is deliberately conservative: a real small domain is never "corrected" to gmail.com. fixTypos = apply (default; the old address is kept in correctedFrom), suggest (leave the address alone, put the fix in suggestion) or off.
• Merges duplicates after typo repair. Gmail and Googlemail addresses ignore dots and +tags, so those are collapsed. For every other provider only case is ignored, because a+x@acme.com and a@acme.com can be different mailboxes. The first occurrence wins and carries the count in duplicates; extra columns of object rows are kept.
• Flags role (info@, sales@, support@, noreply@…), disposable (about 9,200 throwaway domains from the disposable-email-domains list, CC0) and freeProvider.
• Checks DNS (on by default), once per domain: MX records, with the A-record fallback of RFC 5321. Reports no_domain, null_mx, no_mx. A timeout or resolver error gives mxOk: null and never rejects an address.
• usable = valid syntax, the domain can receive mail, not disposable (unless you turn that off), not a role address (only if you turn that on). outputMode: clean-only returns just those rows.

What it does not do

It cannot tell you whether a mailbox exists. tomas@acme.com passes if acme.com has a mail server, even if nobody called Tomas works there, and it says nothing about catch-all domains. That needs an SMTP-level or statistical check, which is a different job; if you want it, Catch-All Email Verifier does it. This Actor is useful without it.

Other limits: the disposable list is a snapshot, so brand-new throwaway domains are missed; the typo list is English/Western-European biased; role detection looks at the part before + only.

Input example

emails takes strings or objects (emailField names the column; auto-detected when it is called email, e-mail, Email Address…), or set inputDatasetId to read another Actor's dataset. Options: fixTypos, checkMx, removeDisposable, removeRole, outputMode, concurrency.

{
  "emails": ["  Maria.Gonzalez@GMAIL.com ", "maria.gonzalez@gmial.com", "m.a.r.i.a.gonzalez+news@gmail.com",
             "john.smith@hotmail.con", "someone@mailinator.com", "info@lyfeoffshore.com"],
  "fixTypos": "apply",
  "checkMx": true,
  "outputMode": "all"
}

Output example

One row per unique address. This is the second row of a local run of the input above (6 rows in, 4 unique, 3 usable):

{
  "original": "john.smith@hotmail.con",
  "email": "john.smith@hotmail.com",
  "valid": true,
  "issues": ["typo_corrected"],
  "correctedFrom": "john.smith@hotmail.con",
  "suggestion": null,
  "role": false,
  "disposable": false,
  "freeProvider": true,
  "mxOk": true,
  "duplicates": 0,
  "usable": true
}

Field	Meaning
email	The cleaned address (lowercased, unwrapped, typo fixed when fixTypos is apply)
usable	true when the syntax is valid, the domain can receive mail, and it is not filtered as disposable or role
valid	Syntax check passed
issues	Codes such as typo_corrected, disposable_domain, role_address, no_domain, null_mx, no_mx, bad_local, missing_at
correctedFrom	The address before the typo fix, or null
suggestion	The proposed fix when fixTypos is suggest, or null
role / disposable / freeProvider	Flags, always set whatever the filter settings
mxOk	true the domain has a mail server, false it does not, null not checked (DNS off, timeout, or a disposable domain, which is not looked up)
duplicates	How many later rows were merged into this one
original	The value as submitted

Object rows keep their other columns. The key-value store holds SUMMARY with the run totals.

Price

Price per 1,000 by your Apify plan (Apify applies the right column automatically):

	Free	Starter	Scale	Business and up
Address cleaned, per 1,000	$0.40	$0.40	$0.34	$0.28

No start fee. The figures below use the Free-plan price; on a paid plan the same run costs less.

Pay per event: $0.0004 per unique address, platform usage included, no start fee.

List	Cost
1,000 unique addresses	$0.40
10,000 unique addresses	$4.00
100,000 unique addresses	$40.00

Duplicates and blank rows are free; a list of 10,000 rows with 2,000 duplicates costs $3.20. Invalid addresses count as unique addresses and are charged. You are charged per unique address checked in both output modes. Set a maximum cost per run and the Actor processes only as many rows as that limit pays for, and says so in the log.

Use it from code or an AI agent

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/lyfe_tools~email-list-cleaner/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"emails": ["john.smith@hotmail.con", "someone@mailinator.com"], "outputMode": "all"}'

The response is the dataset rows as a JSON array. The Actor also works through the Apify MCP server (https://mcp.apify.com), so AI agents such as Claude or Cursor can call it as a tool: an agent sends emails (and optionally outputMode, removeRole) and reads email, usable and issues from each row.

Part of a lead-list workflow

1. Find: Local Business Leads (role addresses such as info@, by city and category)
2. Clean: Email List Cleaner (this Actor)
3. Verify: Catch-All Email Verifier
4. Check the domain: SPF, DKIM & DMARC Checker

Next step: run the cleaned list through the Catch-All Email Verifier to score whether each mailbox is likely to exist. Each step accepts the previous run's dataset ID in inputDatasetId: this Actor reads the finder's email column (people without a found address are skipped as blank and not charged), and the verifier reads this Actor's email column. Use outputMode: clean-only first, so only usable addresses go on.

FAQ

How do I remove duplicate emails from a list, including Gmail dots and +tags? Duplicates are merged after typo repair. For Gmail and Googlemail, dots and +tags are ignored; for every other provider only case is ignored, since a+x@acme.com and a@acme.com can be different mailboxes.

Does it check MX records? Yes, once per domain, with the RFC 5321 A-record fallback. A timeout gives mxOk: null and never rejects the address. Turn it off with checkMx: false.

Does it remove disposable and role-based emails? Both are always flagged. Disposable addresses are marked not usable by default (removeDisposable); role addresses (info@, sales@) only when you set removeRole: true.

Does it tell me whether a mailbox exists or is catch-all? No. See "What it does not do" above; that is the verifier's job.

Can I upload a CSV? Pass rows as objects (any columns, one of them the address) or point inputDatasetId at a dataset. Extra columns are kept in the output.

Questions or a wrong result: tools@lyfeoffshore.com.