How to find out if an email address exists

Just because you’ve saved an email address in your phone’s or computer’s contact list doesn’t necessarily mean that it actually exists. You may have pinned it incorrectly or it may no longer be available. So? Is it possible to find out if an email address really exists? Well, surely if you continue to wade through it wondering about it you will not get any kind of information. You have to move from words to deeds! And immediately, too! If you give me a few minutes of your precious time I can explain to you how to succeed or at least how to try.

In fact, in the following lines we will review some online services useful for this purpose, as well as some ad hoc practices that you have on your side to be able to understand if a given e-mail address really exists and is potentially used by someone or not. All the solutions in question are completely legal and do not in any way imply the violation of the privacy of others, mind you.

However, the thing you should take into account is the fact that unfortunately these are not 100% reliable systems. This means that, even if you find matches, you will not be able to have the most absolute certainty of whether that given e-mail address really exists or not unless, of course, you decide to write to him and then get an answer. Happy reading and good luck with everything!

Online tools to find out if an email address exists

As anticipated at the beginning of the tutorial, to find out whether an e-mail address exists or not, you can rely on some Web services specifically designed to verify the validity of e-mail accounts.

Clearly, using it you will not be able to trace the name and surname of the actual owner of the email address you are looking for, but you will only be indicated if the email address entered is really active and functioning or not: all for free (even if some of the tools in question become paid if you want to obtain information on more than one address). Read on to learn more.

MailInput

There are several services that could be right for you. MailInput is one of the best. To use it, connected to its home page, click on the Email Verifier link (at the top) and, on the new page that has opened, type in the appropriate text field (in the centre) the e-mail address whose existence you wish to verify ( eg name.surname@providername ). Then click on the Verify button or press Enter on the keyboard to start the verification procedure.

If the test result is positive, you will be shown a box with a green tick and the wording Valid , indicating that the e-mail address you entered previously is valid. If, on the other hand, the result of the test carried out is negative, you will see a box appear on the screen with a red x and the wording Invalid indicating that the e-mail address you entered is not valid.

Alternative services

As an alternative to Check email that I told you about earlier, you can take advantage of other services that work more or less similar to the latter. The ones you find below in my opinion represent the best alternatives in the category. At least give them a look.

• Verify Email Address — free service useful for the purpose in question. Once the relative main page has opened, just enter the email address to be verified in the appropriate field, click on Verify Email Now and wait for the response.
• Proofy — service that works after free registration that allows you to verify email addresses by entering them in the text field on its home page and then clicking Enter on the keyboard. To verify more than 100 emails per month, you need to subscribe, which starts at $16/month.
• Verify-Email — an additional service similar to the ones above. To verify the validity of a given e-mail address you must go to the home page, type the e-mail to be analyzed in the appropriate text field, press the Verify Email button and wait for the verification result. It is possible to take a free test without registering; then you have to register and eventually subscribe, which starts from 9 dollars/month to verify over 2000 addresses per month.

Further solutions

To find out if an e-mail address exists, you can also rely on additional Web services specifically designed to find out information about people by searching through the details made public on the Net by them. One of the best out there is Spokeo . In case you haven’t heard of it before, it’s a free and fairly simple to use online service that allows you to locate the public information that users have left on social networks (and beyond).

Since the algorithm of this platform screens more than 120 platforms, if the email address of your interest is in the public information of one of these profiles, you may be able to verify the identity of the person to whom it belongs ‘address.

To use the service, go to its main page, click on the Email tab, type the email address you want to verify in the Enter an Email Address text field and then click on the green SEARCH NOW button . Now, wait for the procedure to complete and, if Spokeo has managed to trace the identity of the person who owns the email address you provided above, you should see their profile picture at the top of the page (if they have one). set to one of his social accounts), after the entry We Found Several Matches For [email address you searched for] .

To trace the name and surname of the identified person, press the Unlock full results button : on the page that opens, you should see his name “in clear text”. To view other information related to the person you found, however, you will need to subscribe to one of Spokeo’s Premium subscription plans, starting at $1.95 per result.

If you want further explanations on how to know who an email address belongs to, consult the guide that I just linked to you. I am sure that this reading will also be useful to you.

Check if an email address exists by trying various combinations

In conclusion, I would like to inform you of a practice which, although a little more inconvenient than using the services mentioned above (as well as decidedly more laborious and time-consuming), can nonetheless be of help to allow you to find out if an address email really exists. What I want to suggest you do is try to identify the e-mail address of a given person by trying a series of possible combinations taking into account what are the possibilities for registering an e-mail account with the most common services used for this purpose.

Once you have found a probable email address, you can then try to write to the presumed “holder” of the same, explaining your reasons and perhaps also clarifying the fact that you have traced back to that given address by exclusion and carrying out this or that other test . If you receive an answer and above all if the person you intended to get in touch with answers you, then there are no more doubts: you’ve done bingo, as they say! However, let’s see in more detail how to proceed for what are the main Webmail services on the market.

Gmail

If you are interested in finding out if a Gmail email address exists, you can follow the diagram below, bearing in mind however that Gmail email accounts do not include any points in the initial part. Consequently, to save valuable time, I strongly recommend that you exclude this type of punctuation from your proofs.

• nomecognome@gmail.com
• cognomenome@gmail.com
• nome_cognome@gmail.com
• cognome_nome@gmail.cm
• nomecognomeannodinascita@gmail.com
• nomecognome_annodinascita@gmail.com
• cognomenomeannodinascita@gmail.com
• cognomenome_annodinascita@gmail.com
• nickname@gmail.com
• nicknameannodinascita@gmail.com
• nickname_annodinascita@gmail.com

Outlook.com, Live e Hotmail

If, on the other hand, you want to find out if an Outlook.com or Live/Hotmail email address exists, the scheme you can follow is the one you find below. In this specific case, however, keep in mind the fact that until recently, registration on Microsoft’s Windows Live services provided for the automatic assignment of an e-mail address based on the name and surname of the reference user. Only later was this changed.

• nome.cognome@outlook.com (oppure .it)
• cognome.nome@outlook.com (oppure .it)
• nome_cognome@outlook.com (oppure .it)
• cognome_nome@outlook.com (oppure .it)
• nomecognomeannodinascita@outlook.com (oppure .it)
• nomecognome.annodinascita@outlook.com (oppure .it)
• nomecognome_annodinascita@outlook.com (oppure .it)
• cognomenomeannodinascita@outlook.com (oppure .it)
• cognomenome_annodinascita@outlook.com (oppure .it)
• nickname@outlook.com (oppure .it)
• nickname.annodinascita@outlook.com (oppure .it)
• nicknameannodinascita@outlook.com (oppure .it)
• nickname_annodinascita@outlook.com (oppure .it)
• nome.cognome@live.com (oppure .it)
• cognome.nome@live.com (oppure .it)
• nome_cognome@live.com (oppure .it)
• cognome_nome@live.com (oppure .it)
• surname_name@hotmail.it (or .com)
• name_surname@hotmail.it (or .com)
• surname.name@hotmail.it (or .com)
• name.surname@hotmail.it (or .com)

iCloud Mail

If you use iCloud Mail , the email service provided by Apple, you can use the following combinations to try to understand if an address exists or not.

• nomecognome@icloud.com
• cognomenome@icloud.com
• nome_cognome@icloud.com
• cognome_nome@icloud.com
• nomecognomeannodinascita@icloud.com
• nomecognome_annodinascita@icloud.com
• cognomenomeannodinascita@icloud.com
• cognomenome_annodinascita@icloud.com
• nickname@icloud.com
• nicknameannodinascita@icloud.com
• nickname_annodinascita@icloud.com

Libero

If you are a Libero Mail user , what has already been said in the previous lines is valid: you can try the “usual” combinations to try to identify the correct one.

• nomecognome@libero.it
• cognomenome@libero.it
• nome_cognome@libero.it
• cognome_nome@libero.it
• nomecognomeannodinascita@libero.it
• nomecognome_annodinascita@libero.it
• cognomenomeannodinascita@libero.it
• cognomenome_annodinascita@libero.it
• nickname@libero.it
• nicknameannodinascita@libero.it
• nickname_annodinascita@libero.it

Other email providers

If then the email address you want to make sure of the existence is not one of the above services, the scheme you can try to stick to is the one you find below. In this specific case, I advise you to replace the term “service” after the at sign (@) with the name of the reference e-mail provider.

• surname_name@servizio.it (or .com)
• name_surname@servizio.it (or .com)
• surname.name@servizio.it (or .com)
• name.surname@servizio.it (or .com)
• name.surname@servizio.it (or .com)
• surname.name@servizio.it (or .com)
• name_surname@servizio.it (or .com)
• surname_name@servizio.it (or .com)
• name.surname@servizio.it (or .com)
• surname.name@servizio.it (or .com)
• name_surname@servizio.it (or .com)
• surname_name@servizio.it (or .com)
• namesurnameyeardinascita@servizio.it (or .com)
• firstnamesurname.annodinascita@servizio.it (or .com)
• namesurname_yeardinascita@servizio.it (or .com)
• surnamenameyeardinascita@servizio.it (or .com)
• surnamename_yeardinascita@servizio.it (or .com)
• nickname@servizio.it (or .com)
• nickname.annodinascita@servizio.it (or .com)
• nicknameannodinascita@servizio.it (or .com)
• nickname_annodinascita@servizio.it (or .com)