Email address verification

This post is out-dated. Please see the new email verification guide.

The process of checking email addresses to ensure they are real and can receive emails is important for many applications. MailSlurp provides a free email address verification and checking function that calls mail servers to ask if given email addresses exist. You can verify email addresses online using the MailSlurp dashboard or in code and tests using the MailSlurp developer SDK.

Verify email addresses online for free

You can use the MailSlurp dashboard to verify email addresses for free.

Simply sign-up or login to MailSlurp using the online email dashboard and navigate to the MailServer section in the sidebar. Enter an email address and click submit to validate the email.

Why verify email addresses

Reducing bounce emails and complaints is the main reason to verify email addresses. Keeping your email address list clean. If your mailserver creates too many bounce emails then your emails may not be delivered to other servers and your spam reputation will increase. To avoid this use the MailSlurp email verification features.

Email API usage - verify email addresses in code

Use the MailSlurp email API to test email accounts are valid. Here is an example in Java:

class Test {
    public void canVerifyEmailAddresses() throws ApiException {
        EmailVerificationControllerApi verificationControllerApi = new EmailVerificationControllerApi(apiClient);
        ValidateEmailAddressListResult validateEmailAddressListResult = verificationControllerApi.validateEmailAddressList(new ValidateEmailAddressListOptions().addEmailAddressListItem("contact@mailslurp.dev"));
        assertEquals(true, validateEmailAddressListResult.getResultMapEmailAddressIsValid().get("contact@mailslurp.dev"));
    }
}

How does it work?

MailSlurp derives a mailserver for an email address by digging the MX records for the domain. It then connects via telnet to the server and sends the rcpt to:<emailaddress> command to check that the email exists on the server. This is the most reliable way to ensure that an email address really exists. You must have a plan that includes the Email Validation product to use the verification service.

See the verification starter guide or the email verification documentation for more info.