HOW TO: Check If An Email Address Actually Exists

Even though Internet is now ruled by a different kind of communication, we still rely on email for several reasons and yes it is also one of the most convenient way. But email address is not easy like Twitter and Facebook to authenticate, we cannot conform whether it is genuine or fake easily. I found out some useful tools to check whether an email address actually exits or not, you can see them below.

The tool I tried is Verify Email Address and it is quite awesome. This will be really useful for newbies. Just go to this site and enter your email address.

Email Address Verified

This means the email address is correct. They checked the email address syntax and also whether the mail server is working properly or not. So the email address “pradeep@slashsquare.org” is valid.

Email Address Verified
Email Address Verified

Email Address Is Not Valid

Here the information says the email address “asdfasd@slashsquare.org” was not created by the administrator, but has a mail server configured using Google Apps and the email syntax is correct. So the email address is not valid or available.

Email Address Given Is Not Valid
Email Address Given Is Not Valid

No MX Resource Records are Found

MX (Mail eXchange) Record is an entry in a domain name database that identifies the mail server that is responsible for handling e-mails for that domain name. Here the MX Resource Records are not found, so probably they might not have configured any mail server for sending and receiving mails. So any email address with “____@aasdjflasd.com” may not be valid.

No MX Records Found
No MX Records Found

Invalid Email Address Syntax

Normally an email address will look like “name@domainname.com”, but the one mentioned here is not, so obviously it is an invalid email address.

Email Syntax Wrong
Email Syntax Wrong

What Really Happens Behind?

These screenshots gave simple explanation, what really happens is quite geeky, you can check the process below.

Log:
MX record about slashsquare.org exists.
Connection succeeded to ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM SMTP.
220 mx.google.com ESMTP h3si178813obx.132
> HELO verify-email.org
250 mx.google.com at your service
> MAIL FROM:
=250 2.1.0 OK h3si178813obx.132
> RCPT TO: =250 2.1.5 OK h3si178813obx.132

Geeky? Simple Explanation Here.

1. First they get MX DNS records of the domain name to verify which mail server is used.

2. Then they check the mail server to see whether the username really exists.

3. After verifying with the email syntax and all, the results displayed.

That’s it, no big issues.

Meanwhile you can also check out similar tools like Verify Email Tool and Verify Email.

Do check this and give your opinion. Have you used any other tool for verifying email addresses? Kindly share them below.

32 thoughts on “HOW TO: Check If An Email Address Actually Exists”

  1. Dear Pradeep the same you can check with any gmail account. Send some item and it will show you bounce mail instantly. So what is special about this tool?

    Reply
  2. It's funny… as everybody appreciate this tool without even giving it a try and verify it. Pure link hunters…

    Reply
  3. This tool can be used by online marketer . Don't know may be they are using it 🙂 but will be really helpful for me . As i am trying my hands on affiliate marketing now

    Reply
  4. It is a good tool to check if an email address exists or not without actually sending an email and bothering the person. I use these services to regularly clean my e-mail contact list and also while sending emails to new contacts as I hate to see the mails I send bouncing back to my inbox. This post would be very beneficial to lot of people who don't have any idea about it.

    Reply
  5. This is kind of great tool for checking the existence of any email address. I was looking for it.
    thanks for sharing it……………

    Reply
  6. I'm sorry to say but this service is a total failure.

    1. It does not recognize admin@softmace.com, e-mail address wich really exists.
    2. If you type, for example "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz@yahoo.com" you'll find that is available, wich is really not true.

    Reply
      • It's probably a restriction. For example, in SQL DataBases an e-mail address looks something like %@%.%

        %random text, then @, then . (dot)

        Nice try though.

        Reply
          • No. The true part is, they have assigned by default for some brand names such as Yahoo or Gmail to appear as Valid even if you enter any invalid yahoo or gmail email address like abcd123abcd@gmail.com or anything.

            The technical reason behind this could be, as they ping to the domain of the email address everything you try to verify it. If say, that site receives 100 queries to verify email addresses of the domain Gmail. The site ll ping gmail 100 times from its IP which may sometimes considered as spam by Gmail or Yahoo and chances are that the site's IP get banned or may show invalid results.

            It has nothing to do with algorithm.

            Reply
  7. Yes this tool will be prove better for all online marketers because we can save our much time.

    Reply
  8. Verify email address seems like a pretty nifty tool and resource. I get a lot of email addresses that don't exist and as a result it bounces and gets returned. Not sure if I could use this to eliminate some of that, but I am certainly going to look into it.

    Reply
  9. No I never used any kind of tool for checking an email whether it is present or not. Its really cool.
    Thanks Pradeep for sharing with us.
    Amit Shaw

    Reply

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