OT Email verification?

Stormin' Norman wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Tried that. Any idea how accurate these services are - there are many? Maybe the address exists but it is not checked for messages? Probably I'm asking too much.

This service has flaws - some old email servers still exist - and will return "Valid" .. but in reality have been abandoned. One example :

John T.

What email program are you using? Some, such as Outlook, have a "delivery confirmation" option. I can't vouch for it, but you could play around with known-good and known-bogus email addresses to get a feel for the results.

If it's a company you are sending a question to, you could call first to obtain the proper email address for your specific question. (I assume you are asking your question via email so that a paper trail exists and/or so that you have a written response e.g. a set of instructions, etc.)

Of course, you could simply send a quick email asking if the email address is valid and request a response. If it bounces, you'll know it isn't valid. If it doesn't bounce *and* you get no response, then you can assume it's valid but not monitored.

Ken, this service creates an SMTP-envelope session to determine if the address is valid. Meaning, it connects to the recipients mail server as if it were actually about to send a message. Not all mail servers cooperate with this process, depending upon security settings, but the link I posted certainly works with accounts and domains managed by Gmail.

This is what the site says about it's service:

"Email Checker is a simple tool for verifying an email address. It extracts the MX records from the email address and connect to mail server (over SMTP and also simulates sending a message) to make sure the mailbox really exist for that user/address. Some mail servers do not co-operate in the process, in such cases, the result of this email verification tool may not be as accurate as expected. "

If you used it and the result came up as being valid, then I suspect the address is a good one. However, you cannot determine if your emails was sent to spam, deleted, not opened or read and not responded to.

My long-defunct canoemail email address turned up as "Valid" even though the host canoe . ca stopped their email service over 10 years ago. John T.

I use Thunderbird and it has verification.

If it says "invalid" then indeed it's invalid.

OTOH: If it verifies the address there is no guarantee of course that it's still in use....Still it's helpful for cleaning up my address book a bit

Thus the reason for my other suggestion:

"You could simply send a quick email asking if the email address is valid and request a response. If it bounces, you'll know it isn't valid. If it doesn't bounce *and* you get no response, then you can assume it's valid but not monitored."

"Hi! I have a question about one of your products. Is this the proper email address to use? Thanks!"

Another advantage of that "test" is that you may actually make a one-to-one connection as opposed to being dumped into a pool.

"Hi! My name is Sue. How do you do? What can I help you with?"

As I'm sure you know, in many cases we don't have to use some sophisticated technology that still leaves us guessing. We can take some simple steps and get an answer that we have some faith in.

BTW...did you get the "Sue" reference? ;-)