How to check if an email really exists?

Posted in Help the coder! on Aug 17, 2009 at 12:00 IST (about 1 year ago). Subscribe to this post

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I have a form where the user needs to enter a valid email address. I know how to check whether its a valid email address or not. But I need to know whether that email address really exists or the user entered a fake one?

ie, i need to know if that email address is really in use or not?

Someone help me in this please!

Posted by skywalker on Monday, August 17, 2009, 12:00 pm

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sureshccRank: 10

There's an old gem called "Finger" protocol. But I don't think it has been active for some time due to spammer exploitation. However, Google seems to be trying to bring it back (It works on gmail servers, in other words).

Try this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_protocol

A few people have implemented this properly:
http://www.hq42.net/net_tools/test_email_addr.php

And read these if you want to do it yourself, programmatically:
http://www.coveryourasp.com/ValidateEmail.asp
http://www.howtodothings.com/computers/a1058-check-e-mail-address-validity-.html

Thankful users: skywalker

Posted by sureshcc on Monday, August 17, 2009, 1:05 pm