Email Validator Pro

An Apify actor for advanced email validation. It performs comprehensive checks, including format validation, domain MX record lookups, and real-time SMTP verification, to determine if an email address exists and can receive mail.

Key Features

• Format & Domain Validation: Checks email syntax against RFC 5322 and verifies the domain has valid mail exchange (MX) records.
• SMTP Verification: Connects to the mail server to check if the mailbox exists, providing the highest accuracy.
• Provider Detection: Identifies free email providers (like Gmail, Yahoo) and disposable/temporary email services.
• Batch Processing: Efficiently validates large lists of emails with configurable batch sizes.
• Smart Corrections: Suggests fixes for common typos (e.g., gmial.com -> gmail.com).
• Detailed Reporting: Returns granular results for each email and a summary with statistics.

How to Use

Provide an array of email addresses via the actor's input. Configure the validation behavior with optional settings.

Input Configuration

Required:
* emails (array): The list of email addresses to validate.

Optional Settings:
* checkSMTP (boolean, default: true): Enable real-time mailbox verification.
* rejectDisposable (boolean, default: false): Mark emails from disposable providers as invalid.
* batchSize (integer, default: 50): Number of emails to process per batch (1-100).
* delayBetweenChecks (number, default: 0.1): Delay in seconds between validations to prevent rate-limiting.
* maxRetries (integer, default: 2): Retry attempts for failed SMTP connections.
* timeout (integer, default: 10): SMTP connection timeout in seconds.

Input / Output

Output Format

For each email, the actor returns a detailed result object:

{
  "email": "user@example.com",
  "original_email": "User@Example.com",
  "is_valid": true,
  "valid_format": true,
  "valid_mx": true,
  "valid_smtp": true,
  "is_free": false,
  "is_disposable": false,
  "domain": "example.com",
  "errors": [],
  "warnings": [],
  "suggestions": [],
  "mx_records": ["10:mail.example.com"],
  "smtp_response": "250 OK",
  "validation_time": 1642789123.456
}

The final dataset item is a summary object:

{
  "summary": true,
  "total_emails": 1000,
  "valid_emails": 847,
  "invalid_emails": 153,
  "free_emails": 234,
  "disposable_emails": 12,
  "validation_rate": 84.7,
  "processing_time_seconds": 45.2,
  "emails_per_second": 22.1,
  "common_errors": {
    "Invalid email format": 89,
    "Domain has no MX records": 34,
    "Email address does not exist": 30
  },
  "options_used": {...},
  "checks_performed": [...]
}

Use Cases

• Marketing: Clean email lists before campaigns to reduce bounce rates.
• User Signups: Validate email addresses during registration.
• Data Maintenance: Perform hygiene checks on existing databases or CRM records.
• Compliance: Help ensure accurate contact information for consent records.

Technical Notes

The validation runs these checks in order:
1. Syntax format validation.
2. Domain extraction and classification (free/disposable).
3. DNS MX record lookup.
4. SMTP mailbox verification (if enabled).

Performance depends heavily on target mail server response times. The built-in rate limiting and retry logic helps manage connections reliably.