CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#
smartali89
smartali89

Reputation: 209

How to verify if a email address exists?

Is there any possible way to find out if an email address exists in c#?

e.g. I have an email address like [email protected] or [email protected] How can I do the validation?

Upvotes: 5

Views: 2058

Answers (5)

gbn
gbn

Reputation: 432271

No way at all

If it's for a reason, such as signing up with verification, then someone will reply when you send.

Why do you want to do this?

Upvotes: 2

Anders Abel
Anders Abel

Reputation: 69260

Once upon a time the Internet and the SMTP mail transfer protocol was invented. It was back in the good old days when everyone were nice and friendly, so a command was included in the SMTP protocol to verify email addresses - the VRFY command.

However, darkness came upon the Internet and brought spammers, worms and other evil, so the sysadmins of the Internet mail servers defended what was good by disabling the VRFY command.

So the short answer is: No.

Upvotes: 13

Hans Olsson
Hans Olsson

Reputation: 55009

In general that's not possible. Which is why many websites have that to sign up you have to give your email address and they'll send a link where you have to go to that link to confirm that it's your email.

Upvotes: 3

Lasse V. Karlsen
Lasse V. Karlsen

Reputation: 391396

The most obvious way is to send an email to the mail address and ask the recipient to reply or click a link.

Upvotes: 7

Anemoia
Anemoia

Reputation: 8116

Basicly: you can't. There are servers that support finger (to verify that a particular user exists), but for Hotmail/Gmail it's just not possible. The mail will bounce though.

Upvotes: 3

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