Email Validator – MX & Disposable Check

Validate email addresses in bulk without sending any mail: each address gets a verdict (ok, role, disposable, no_mail_server, domain_not_found or invalid_syntax) from a strict syntax check, the domain's MX records (including RFC 7505 null MX), a list of about 9,900 disposable domains, free-mail and role-account lists, a typo suggestion (gmial.com → gmail.com) and, optionally, the domain's SPF and DMARC policy. Built for cleaning sign-up and lead lists, blocking throw-away addresses in forms, and AI agents that need a quick yes/no before they email someone. $0.40 per 1,000 emails.

• What you get: verdict, quality (good / risky / bad), reason, normalized email, mx hosts and mailProvider, disposable, freeProvider, role, typoSuggestion, domainSpf, domainDmarc.
• Price: $0.0004 per checked email (email), no subscription; addresses whose domain could not be looked up are not charged.
• Honest about what it checks: no SMTP probing (from cloud IPs it is unreliable and gets blocked), so it never claims a mailbox exists. For a mailbox-level verdict, send the addresses that pass to Email Verifier.
• Works everywhere: API, MCP for AI agents, Make, Zapier, n8n, schedules and webhooks.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
emails	string[]	–	Addresses to validate, one per line. Objects with an email key are accepted too. Duplicates are removed, also differently written forms of one address (Jane@X.com, <jane@x.com>).
checkSpfDmarc	boolean	true	Also read each domain's SPF record and DMARC policy (two extra DNS lookups per domain, cached for the run).
maxEmails	integer	10000	Safety cap for this run (up to 100,000); addresses beyond it are ignored and counted as inputItemsDropped in the OUTPUT record.
concurrency	integer	10	Addresses validated in parallel (1–20).
includeRaw	boolean	false	Attach the unmodified pre-check result to each record.

{
  "emails": ["support@apify.com", "jane.doe@gmial.com", "info@example.com"],
  "checkSpfDmarc": true
}

Output

One dataset record per address:

{
  "input": "support@apify.com",
  "email": "support@apify.com",
  "verdict": "role",
  "quality": "risky",
  "reason": "Role account (a shared mailbox such as info@ or sales@), not a person",
  "deliverable": "unknown",
  "domain": "apify.com",
  "canonicalEmail": "support@apify.com",
  "syntaxValid": true,
  "syntaxError": null,
  "domainExists": true,
  "mx": ["aspmx.l.google.com", "alt1.aspmx.l.google.com", "alt2.aspmx.l.google.com", "aspmx2.googlemail.com", "aspmx3.googlemail.com"],
  "nullMx": false,
  "hasMailServer": true,
  "mailProvider": "google",
  "disposable": false,
  "freeProvider": false,
  "role": true,
  "typoSuggestion": null,
  "domainSpf": { "record": "v=spf1 a mx include:_spf.google.com include:mailgun.org -all", "multipleRecords": false, "allQualifier": "-all", "includes": ["_spf.google.com", "mailgun.org"] },
  "domainDmarc": { "record": "v=DMARC1; p=reject; sp=reject; pct=100", "policy": "reject", "subdomainPolicy": "reject", "pct": 100, "rua": [] },
  "status": "ok",
  "charged": true,
  "chargedEvent": "email",
  "source": "dns",
  "fetchedAt": "2026-10-14T10:00:00.000Z"
}

A typo domain on the disposable list, with the suggested fix:

{
  "input": "Jane.Doe@Gmial.com",
  "email": "jane.doe@gmial.com",
  "verdict": "disposable",
  "quality": "bad",
  "reason": "Disposable (throw-away) e-mail domain",
  "deliverable": "unknown",
  "domain": "gmial.com",
  "disposable": true,
  "freeProvider": false,
  "role": false,
  "typoSuggestion": "jane.doe@gmail.com",
  "status": "ok",
  "charged": true,
  "chargedEvent": "email",
  "source": "dns",
  "fetchedAt": "2026-10-14T10:00:00.000Z"
}

verdict	Meaning	quality	deliverable
invalid_syntax	Not a valid address (syntaxError says why)	bad	no
domain_not_found	The domain does not exist (NXDOMAIN or an unknown top-level domain)	bad	no
no_mail_server	The domain accepts no mail: null MX, or no MX, A or AAAA record	bad	no
disposable	Throw-away mailbox domain	bad	unknown
role	Shared functional mailbox (info@, sales@ …) on a domain that accepts mail	risky	unknown
ok	Passed every local check (risky when typoSuggestion is set)	good	unknown
unknown	DNS lookups failed, so the domain could not be checked (status error, not charged)	risky	unknown

Field	Description
email, domain, canonicalEmail	Normalized address (lower case, punycode domain), its domain, and the provider-aware form for de-duplication (Gmail ignores dots and +tags).
syntaxValid, syntaxError	Strict RFC 5321/5322 syntax as mailbox providers accept it (quoted local parts and IP-literal domains are refused).
domainExists, mx, nullMx, hasMailServer, mailProvider	The domain's mail setup from DNS; a domain without MX that has an A/AAAA record still counts as having a mail server (RFC 5321).
disposable, freeProvider, role, typoSuggestion	List-based flags and the corrected address for a likely mistyped domain.
domainSpf, domainDmarc	The domain's SPF record (allQualifier, includes) and DMARC policy (policy, pct, rua); null when absent or when checkSpfDmarc is off.
spfDmarcLookup	ok, or failed when the DNS TXT lookups failed: domainSpf / domainDmarc are then unknown, not absent (a failed lookup is retried for the next address on that domain); null when checkSpfDmarc is off.
quality, reason, deliverable	Summary for list cleaning and a one-line explanation; deliverable is no or unknown, never yes.

status is ok for every address with a verdict (charged), error when the domain could not be looked up (error.code dns_lookup_failed, verdict unknown, not charged; retry later) or the item timed out, skipped_budget when your run's cost cap was reached and skipped_free_plan for addresses beyond the free-plan limit (not checked, not charged). The run's key-value store OUTPUT record contains the totals (counts and charged amount).

Pricing

Store discounts: the FREE and BRONZE tiers use the list prices below. SILVER receives 5% off; GOLD, PLATINUM and DIAMOND receive 10% off billable result events. The platform start fee is unchanged. Check the Actor's Store pricing table for the prices currently in effect.

Event	Price	When charged
email	$0.0004 per email ($0.40 / 1,000)	once per address with a verdict, including invalid_syntax; never for unknown (DNS failure)

Example: 25,000 addresses cost about $10. Apart from Apify's automatic Actor-start charge ($0.00005 per GB of run memory) there is no start fee or subscription. Use Maximum cost per run to cap spend; when the cap is hit the remaining addresses are returned with status: "skipped_budget" and are not charged. Accounts on the Apify free plan can process up to 10 email addresses per run; further addresses are returned with status: "skipped_free_plan" and are not charged. Upgrade to any paid Apify plan for full lists.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Use this Actor from Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code or any other MCP client through the Apify MCP server. Add this server URL to your client and sign in with your Apify account when asked:

https://mcp.apify.com?tools=sfoln/email-validator

To run the MCP server locally instead, start npx -y @apify/actors-mcp-server --tools sfoln/email-validator with your APIFY_TOKEN in the environment.

Example prompt:

Validate these email addresses and tell me which ones to drop from my list and why: support@apify.com, jane.doe@gmial.com, info@example.com.

Runs started by an agent are billed like any other run (see Pricing). Agents can cap what a run may spend with maxTotalChargeUsd.

API usage

Run the Actor and get its dataset items in one call (the call waits up to 5 minutes for the run to finish):

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/sfoln~email-validator/run-sync-get-dataset-items" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"emails": ["support@apify.com", "jane.doe@gmial.com", "info@example.com"]}'

For large inputs, start the run asynchronously and download the dataset when it has finished:

# 1. Start a run: the response holds the run ID (data.id) and its dataset ID (data.defaultDatasetId)
curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/sfoln~email-validator/runs" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"emails": ["support@apify.com", "jane.doe@gmial.com", "info@example.com"]}'
# 2. Repeat until data.status is SUCCEEDED (each call waits up to 60 s)
curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/actor-runs/<runId>?waitForFinish=60" -H "Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_TOKEN>"
# 3. Download the results (format=json, csv or xlsx)
curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/<defaultDatasetId>/items?format=json" -H "Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_TOKEN>"

Python (apify-client):

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("sfoln/email-validator").call(run_input={"emails": ["support@apify.com", "jane.doe@gmial.com", "info@example.com"]})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

Instead of polling, you can attach a webhook to the run (see Integrations). The API tab of this page shows the same calls for JavaScript and the Apify CLI.

Integrations

• Make, Zapier and n8n: run sfoln/email-validator with the Apify app (in n8n, the Apify node) and pass the dataset items to the next step of your workflow.
• Google Sheets: add the items to a sheet with the Google Sheets step of Make, Zapier or n8n, or download them as CSV or Excel from the run's Storage tab or the API (format=csv or format=xlsx).
• Webhooks: get a POST request when a run succeeds or fails: add a webhook in the Actor's Integrations tab, or pass webhooks when you start a run through the API.
• Schedules: run it hourly, daily or weekly with the same input from Apify Schedules; every run keeps its results in its own dataset.
• More: Slack, Google Drive, GitHub, LangChain, LlamaIndex and other Apify integrations.

Related Actors

• Website Contact Details Scraper
• Google Maps Leads Scraper + Emails
• Phone Number Validator

See all our Actors on Apify Store.

FAQ

How much does it cost, and am I charged for failed items?

You pay per event at the prices under Pricing above, plus a run start fee of $0.00005 per GB of memory, with no subscription; platform usage is included. Errors and skipped items (skipped_… statuses) are never charged; a lookup that finds nothing is charged only where Pricing says so, and every record's charged field shows whether it was billed. Set Maximum cost per run to cap what a single run can spend.

How fresh is the data?

Each run queries its source while it runs, so you get what the source returns at that moment. Source-specific details, such as how often a provider refreshes its own database, are under Limits & notes.

What are the limits?

Per-run caps (for example the maximum number of items) are listed under Input, source limits under Limits & notes, and the free-plan limit under Pricing. For big batches, start the run asynchronously (see API usage) and read the dataset when it has finished.

Can I schedule runs or get results by webhook?

Yes. Create a schedule in Apify Console to run it hourly, daily or weekly with the same input, and add a webhook to get a POST request when a run finishes (see Integrations).

What does this Actor record about my runs?

This Actor records operational metrics about each run (item counts, duration, charges, error codes and a pseudonymous hash of your Apify user ID) to monitor reliability and costs. It never stores your input or results.

Does it check whether the mailbox exists?

No. It never connects to the mail server (SMTP probing from cloud IPs is unreliable and gets blocked). It settles what DNS and the bundled lists can settle: invalid syntax, domains that do not exist or accept no mail, and disposable domains. For a mailbox-level verdict (valid, invalid, catch-all) run the addresses that pass through Email Verifier.

Which addresses are charged?

Every address that gets a verdict, including invalid syntax, is charged one email event ($0.0004). An address whose domain could not be looked up because DNS failed comes back with status error and verdict unknown and is not charged; run it again later.

How do I get help?

Open an issue in the Actor's Issues tab and include the link to the run, so we can reproduce the problem. Feature requests are welcome there too.

Limits & notes

• Up to 100,000 addresses per run (maxEmails). Each domain is looked up once per run and shared by all its addresses, so lists with many addresses on the same domains run fastest.
• DNS comes from Cloudflare's DNS-over-HTTPS service, with Google Public DNS as the fallback when Cloudflare fails or answers with an error. A domain whose own name servers are broken (SERVFAIL on both) ends as unknown and is not charged.
• No SMTP connection is ever made, so a deliverable-looking address may still bounce (a mailbox that does not exist, a full mailbox, a catch-all domain). Use Email Verifier for a mailbox-level verdict.
• The disposable-domain list (CC0, about 9,900 domains) and the free-mail and role lists ship with the Actor and are refreshed with its releases; a brand-new throw-away domain may not be listed yet.
• Results are not cached between runs and no address is stored by this Actor beyond your run's dataset.