📧 Email Verifier & Bulk Validator — Check Email Deliverability (SMTP, MX, Catch-All)

Clean any email list before you send. Verify one address or a million — in bulk, without sending a single email. For every address you get a clear verdict — deliverable / undeliverable / risky / unknown — an A–F grade, a 0–100 confidence score, and the exact reason. Cut hard bounces, protect your sender reputation, and stop wasting outreach on dead inboxes.

✅ No API key. No signup. No proxy needed. Free public checks (DNS + SMTP).

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⚡ What it checks (per email)

Check	What you learn
Syntax	Is the address validly formed (RFC-style)?
Domain / MX	Does the domain exist and actually accept mail?
Microsoft 365 mailbox	For company domains on Microsoft 365 / Azure AD, confirms whether the mailbox exists over HTTPS — works on any cloud, no port 25 needed
SMTP mailbox	For every other domain, connects to the real mail server and asks “does this inbox exist?” — no email is sent (RCPT probe)
Catch-all	Detects accept-all domains where every address “exists” (so you know a result is uncertain)
Disposable	Temp / throwaway providers — checked against a live ~7,800-domain blocklist refreshed each run
Role-based	info@, sales@, support@ … (low-value for cold outreach)
Free provider	gmail / yahoo / outlook …
SPF / DMARC / DKIM	Email-authentication signals of the domain
Mail provider	Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Zoho, Proofpoint …
Typo fix	foo@gmial.com → did you mean foo@gmail.com
Normalized email	Canonical form (Gmail dots & +tags removed) — great for de-duping
Gravatar (optional)	Is a real person’s avatar attached to this email?

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🥇 Why this beats other email verifiers

Most verifiers just return valid/invalid. This one gives your sales & data teams the full picture — and it’s bulk, block-proof, and needs no API key:

Feature	Typical verifier	This actor
Syntax + MX + SMTP mailbox check	✅	✅
Catch-all detection	✅	✅
Disposable + role + free flags	partial	✅
SPF / DMARC / DKIM deliverability signals	❌	✅
Mail-provider detection (Google/Microsoft/Zoho…)	❌	✅
Typo suggestion (did_you_mean)	❌	✅
Normalized email (Gmail dot/+tag) for de-dupe	❌	✅
Gravatar “real human” signal	❌	✅ (optional)
A–F grade + 0–100 score	partial	✅
No API key / no monthly credit limit	❌	✅
Bulk + parallel	✅	✅

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🎯 Perfect for

• Sales / SDR / outbound — scrub a lead list so a cold campaign doesn’t bounce
• Anyone using a lead / email-finder scraper — verify the emails you just collected
• Email marketing / newsletters — cut hard bounces, keep your domain out of spam
• Signup & lead forms — validate an address the moment it’s entered
• CRM hygiene — de-dupe with the normalized form and drop dead addresses

💡 Pairs with the author’s lead-gen actors (Lead Enricher Pro, Google Maps Leads, Contact Details Scraper): scrape emails → verify them here → send only to the good ones.

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🧾 Input

Field	Description
emails	List of addresses to verify (or a comma/newline string)
text	Paste any text/CSV/thread — every email inside is extracted & verified
smtpCheck	Ask the mail server if the mailbox exists (default on). Turn off for a faster syntax+MX+DNS check
gravatarCheck	Also check for a public Gravatar avatar (default off)
concurrency	How many to verify in parallel, 1–20 (default 5)
proxyHost / proxyPort	SOCKS5 proxy for the live SMTP check — see below
proxyType / proxyUsername / proxyPassword	SOCKS5 (default) or SOCKS4, plus optional auth

🔌 Unlock the live SMTP mailbox check (port 25)

Real mailbox verification (“does this inbox exist?”) requires a connection to the recipient’s mail server on port 25 — and, to stop spam, every cloud provider (including Apify) blocks outbound port 25. This is a hard rule of email, not a bug: even the most popular open-source verifier (reacherhq) works exactly the same way.

Two ways to turn the SMTP check on:

1. Set proxyHost / proxyPort to a SOCKS5 proxy that allows port 25 (e.g. one running on a small VPS such as Kamatera or AvaHosting that leaves port 25 open).
2. Or run this Actor on any network/VPS where outbound port 25 is open.

Without a proxy the Actor still runs perfectly as a fast MX + DNS + risk validator (syntax, MX, disposable, role, free, typo, provider, SPF/DMARC/DKIM, normalization, grade & score) — it just reports the SMTP field honestly as unknown instead of guessing.

Example input

{
  "emails": ["ada@stripe.com", "info@apify.com", "test@mailinator.com", "foo@gmial.com"],
  "smtpCheck": true,
  "concurrency": 5
}

📤 Output (per email)

{
  "email": "ada@stripe.com",
  "status": "deliverable",
  "is_valid": true,
  "grade": "A",
  "score": 95,
  "reason": "mailbox_exists",
  "is_valid_syntax": true,
  "normalized_email": "ada@stripe.com",
  "domain": "stripe.com",
  "provider": "Google Workspace",
  "has_mx": true,
  "mx_host": "aspmx.l.google.com",
  "smtp_status": "deliverable",
  "is_catch_all": false,
  "is_disposable": false,
  "is_role": false,
  "is_free": false,
  "has_spf": true,
  "has_dmarc": true,
  "has_dkim": true,
  "did_you_mean": null,
  "has_gravatar": null
}

Every run also saves a SUMMARY (totals by status) in the key-value store.

Statuses

• deliverable — the mailbox exists and accepts mail ✅ (safe to send)
• undeliverable — bad syntax, dead domain, or the mailbox doesn’t exist ❌ (do not send)
• risky — catch-all domain, disposable, or a role address ⚠️ (send with caution)
• unknown — the mail server wouldn’t confirm (greylisting / port 25 blocked); scored from MX + DNS

❓ FAQ

Q: Does it send emails to verify them? No. It uses an SMTP RCPT probe — it asks the server whether the inbox exists and then disconnects. Nothing is ever delivered.

Q: What is a “catch-all” domain? A domain configured to accept mail for every address, so the server can’t tell you if a specific inbox is real. We flag these as risky so you don’t treat an unverifiable address as confirmed.

Q: Why are some results unknown? Some mail servers greylist or hide mailbox existence, and some networks block outbound port 25. In those cases we fall back to a confidence score from MX + SPF/DMARC signals instead of guessing.

Q: Can I verify a whole CSV? Yes — paste your list into emails, or drop the raw text into text and every address is auto-extracted. Run it on a schedule for ongoing list hygiene.

💵 Pricing

Pay per email verified — no subscription, no monthly credit cap. See the Pricing tab on this Actor’s page for the current rate. Cleaning 1,000 emails costs a fraction of the revenue you lose to bounces and a damaged sender reputation.

🔗 Related Actors (by the same author)

• Lead Enricher Pro — emails, phones, LinkedIn & tech stack from any website
• Google Maps Leads — business leads with emails & phones
• Contact Details Scraper — emails, phones & socials from any website
• EU VAT Validator — validate EU VAT numbers → official company name & address

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⚖️ Notes

Uses public DNS records and standard SMTP conversations (no message is ever sent). Some mail servers intentionally hide mailbox existence; results for those are reported honestly as risky or unknown rather than guessed.