Free email checker

What the three results mean

Valid

The mail server confirmed this specific mailbox exists. Safe to send.

Risky

The domain is fine but the mailbox is unconfirmed — most often a catch-all domain that accepts every address, or a server that greylisted the probe. Deliverable more often than not, but send these in a separate batch.

Invalid

This will hard bounce. The mailbox does not exist, the domain has no mail server, the syntax is broken, or it is one of 8,740 known disposable domains.

Use this to test any verifier, including ours

Invent an address at a real domain — something like qx7zzt-not-real@gmail.com — and check it here. It should come back invalid, because the mailbox genuinely does not exist and Gmail says so.

Run the same address through any other tool. If it returns valid, that tool checked the syntax and the domain and stopped there — it never asked about the mailbox. That is the difference between a verifier and a formatter, and it is the reason lists that verify clean still bounce.

Common questions

How can I check if an email address is real?

Connect to the domain's mail server and ask whether the mailbox exists, without sending a message. That is what this tool does: it checks the syntax, looks up the domain's MX records, then opens an SMTP conversation and issues RCPT TO for the address. A 250 response means accepted, a 550 means the mailbox does not exist. Nothing is delivered and the recipient never sees anything.

Will the person receive an email when I check their address?

No. The check ends before any message is transmitted — the connection is opened, the address is named, the response is read, and the connection closes. No subject, no body, nothing arrives in their inbox.

Why does it say risky instead of valid?

Because the mailbox could not be confirmed. The usual reason is a catch-all domain, which accepts mail for every address whether it exists or not, so no verifier can tell a real mailbox from an invented one there. Greylisting and servers that refuse to answer also produce risky. We report that honestly rather than guessing valid.

Is this email checker free?

Yes, five checks a minute with no account. A mailbox check costs us nothing per address, so there is no reason to charge for one. Paid plans exist for bulk work: $29.99 a month for unlimited verification, CSV uploads up to 100,000 rows and the email finder.

How accurate is email verification?

For addresses at ordinary domains it is definitive — the mail server itself tells you whether the mailbox exists. It cannot be definitive on catch-all domains, which is why an honest tool has a risky category. Any verifier claiming near-perfect accuracy with no risky bucket is hiding its uncertainty inside its valid results, which is where unexpected bounces come from.

Have a whole list?

Upload a CSV of up to 100,000 rows and get valid, risky and invalid back as separate files. $29.99 a month, unlimited, no credits. See pricing or try the other free tools.