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Any way to check if an email address is active?

Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 7:33 pm
by Jeefo
Is there a website or a script I can use to check if an email address is active? It would be much easier than emailing a lot of people and see if I get it returned by "mailer demon" (or whatever) back to me. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 7:43 pm
by feyd
there is no reliable way without actually sending an email.

Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 9:25 pm
by m3mn0n
Even then programs are capable of "bouncing" it so it seems as though it's invalid. But that is the best method.

I have seen programs that claim to scan any domain for all active e-mail addresses but I never did test it out and I believe it was made purely for spam so I'm not going to publish the URL.

Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2005 3:34 am
by onion2k
Some mail servers let you check addresses with the SMTP VRFY command. But not many. Most just return yes for everything.