Email Information Endpoint

On this page, we’ll dive into the email information endpoint you can use to retrieve information about any email address in order to verify & validate it.

curl -G https://api.emailvalidation.io/v1/info?[email protected] \
    -H "apikey: YOUR-API-KEY"

{
    "email": "[email protected]",
    "user": "support",
    "tag": "",
    "domain": "emailvalidation.io",
    "smtp_check": true,
    "mx_found": true,
    "did_you_mean": "",
    "role": true,
    "disposable": false,
    "score": 0.64,
    "state": "deliverable",
    "reason": "valid_mailbox",
    "free": false,
    "format_valid": true,
    "catch_all": null
}

State / Reason

This is the main indicator for deliverability of email addresses. The state is the deliverability and the reason is the reason why it is in this state.

{
    ...
    "state": "deliverable",
    "reason": "valid_mailbox",
    ...
}

Possible states/reasons

User / Tag / Domain

These fields provide you with a simple way to look at the singular parts of an email address

{
    ...
    "user": "support",
    "tag": "mytag",
    "domain": "emailvalidation.io",
    ...
}

MX Check

The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), which is the very same protocol we all use to move emails on and across networks, is used by the emailvalidation.io API to verify email addresses.

By determining whether the requested domain is set up to accept email, our system starts the process of real-time email verification. Here is where the MX-Records check in the API is useful. The mx found response object of the API will inform you if MX-Records for the specified domain have been located.

{
    ...
    "mx_found": true,
    ...
}

"Did you mean" Check

In the "did you mean" object of the API result set, the emailvalidation.io API will propose a different email address if a potential misspelling or mistake in the requested email address's domain portion is identified.

Please be aware that the email address in the did you mean object is just a recommendation and has no bearing on the other API response objects.

{
    ...
    "did_you_mean": "[email protected]",
    ...
}

Catch-All Detection

One SMTP check is not the end of the real-time verification procedure used by the emailvalidation.io API. A catch-all detection mechanism has been created since many email servers are set up to catch (accept) all incoming mail traffic, independent of the local component of the requested email address.

This functionality is disabled by default due to the significant negative impact it has on the API's response time. However, you can enable catch-all detection by adding the request URL's catch all option and setting it to 1.

Depending on whether the requested email address is discovered to be a part of a catch-all mailbox, the catch all JSON object in the API response will either return true or false.

{
    ...
    "catch_all": true,
    ...
}

Disposable Check

If the requested email address is discovered to be utilizing a disposable email service like mailinator.com or trashmail.com, the API will also return a disposable JSON object with the values true or false.

{
    ...
    "disposable": true,
    ...
}

Services for Disposable Emails

A disposable email service enables users to anonymously create temporary email identities that are often used only once for tasks like activating accounts or getting passwords and expire after a set amount of time. Many of these email services don't require users to register, therefore the inbox of these one-time email accounts is made available to the public. We strongly advise against adding these email addresses to your recipient list.

Free Email Provider Check

The emailvalidation.io API can recognize free email services like Gmail, GMX or Yahoo since it is connected to a regularly updated database that lists all available email providers.

The free JSON object in the API response will either return true or false depending on whether the given email address is discovered to be utilizing a free service.

{
    ...
    "free": true,
    ...
}

Even while free email addresses are typically included in recipient lists, it might make sense for some email campaigns to separate them out and only deliver to addresses with a specific domain.

Role Check

Determining whether the requested email address is a role email address is another step in the emailvalidation.io email verification procedure. A role email is an address that often refers to a function rather than a person or name (for example, "support" or "postmaster"). Due to the low open rates of this sort of email address, it could occasionally be undesirable when sending email campaigns.

Example: If the requested email is a role address, the role JSON object in the API response will return true; otherwise, it will return false.

{
    ...
    "role": true,
    ...
}

Quality Score

The API will return a numeric Quality Score ranging from 0 (Bad) to 1 (Good), reflecting the quality and deliverability of the given email address, to complete the emailvalidation.io validation & verification procedure.

Based on a system that gets smarter with each email address validated, this Quality Score is determined for each requested email address.

{
    ...
    "score": 0.64,
    ...
}

It is impossible to draw clear distinctions between recipients who are "worth sending to" and recipients who are "not worth sending to" because the validity of the numeric quality score depends heavily on the sort of email approach you are making. However, the following rules seem reasonable to us:

For transactional email:

For marketing email: