How to Detect Disposable Email Addresses (Prevent Scam)

How to Detect Disposable Email Addresses (Prevent Scam)
Published in : 17 May 2022

How to Detect Disposable Email Addresses (Prevent Scam)

Email marketing which is one of the most popular digital marketing strategies has risen over the years in this 21st century as lots of people are venturing into digital marketing.

Through this marketing medium, digital marketers can generate leads and also connect with existing customers with ease.

Moreover, gathering all these email addresses is not as easy as we may think. 

Also, compiling messages that will attract email readers to take action on your product or service is quite another task altogether.

Meanwhile, as more digital marketers promote their products, the number of emails that are being sent to email owners increased and this includes spam.

This makes consumers receive lots of spam messages and this results in too many internet users to prevent sharing their email addresses to some untrusted platforms that usually sell their emails to third parties.

As many internet users notice this, they try to find a way of preventing spam messages from bombarding their real email inbox.

 This in turn results in the creation of disposable email addresses.

Moreover, whether you are a digital marketer or not, in this guide we will show you how to detect disposable email addresses, what disposable email addresses are all about, and other related information.

What is a Disposable Email Address

Detect Disposable Email

A disposable email address which can also be called a temporary email address can be seen as a fake email address, a throwaway email address, a burner email address, or even as a temp email is an email address that is generated automatically by online tools and they only last for a few minutes or few days.

Whenever you hear of disposable email addresses, you should always think of “trash or fake,” meaning that they are not created to last forever.

If you want to create fake accounts with some platforms, instead of exhausting your real email address, we recommend that you use a disposable email address; since you will surely abandon that account.

So whenever you are creating a disposable email address, always think of discarding it.

When working on fake accounts, probably accounts that demand a free trial for just a few days, we recommend using a disposable email address to sign up for such an account since you have just a limited time to access your free trial period.

Although several platforms issue disposable email addresses to their users, we recommend Tempmailgen.com as this is one of the best disposable email address generators with a fantastic user interface.

When using Tempmailgen.com, you don’t need to create an account with the platform before accessing your free disposable email address.

 

3 Quick Methods to Detect Disposable Email Addresses

Below are the 3 simple hacks to identify if an email is the real or fake email address 

Method 1: Checking if the Mail Domain is part of a Third-Party Disposable Email Domain Database

To check if the mail domain is part of a third-party disposable email domain database, follow the steps elucidated below:

Step #1: From your Web Browser, Search for Disposable Email Domains Database

With your computer, open your favourite browser and search for “disposable email domains database” on any search engine of your choice. 

We will use the Google search engine in this guide.

 From your Web Browser, Search for Disposable Email Domains Database

 

Step #2: Select a Third-Party Provider

Depending on the search engine that you used, your search result may contain disposable email domain lists from third-party providers.

Moreover, depending on the third-party provider that you wish to choose, you may see different coverage or prices.

Step #3: Download the List of Disposable Email Romains Database

If you want to obtain an accurate result, we recommend that you download the database that is being offered by a provider, which has the updated data on it.

Download the List of Disposable Email Romains Database

After downloading the sample, to see the full list of all the disposable email domains database, you need to create an account with the platform in the image above.

Login to your email account to confirm your email address. 

Next, come back to this platform and sign in to access the Base path: https://emailverification.whoisxmlapi.com/datafeeds as shown below.

email account to confirm your email address. 

 

Step 4: Identify the Domain of the Email Address

By default, the email domain is usually that string that comes after the “@” symbol.

If you see an email for instance [email protected], it simply means that summis.com is the email domain.

Identify the Domain of the Email Address

Step 5: Check if the Domain is included in the Disposable Email Domains Database

Now from your computer or device search for the email domain by pressing CTRL+F that is if you are using Windows OS or pressing Command + F if you are using Mac OS.

Once you find the email in the database, it means that the email is disposable.

 For instance, in the example below [email protected] is a disposable email address because it is listed in the domain database of the disposable email address.

Check if the Domain is included in the Disposable Email Domains Database

 

Method 2: By using Data from Repository Management Platforms

If you want to use data from repository management platforms to detect disposable email addresses, use the steps below:

Step #1: Navigate to a Repository Management Platform

One of the most popular platforms is GitHub Gist and Pastebin and we will use them in this guide.

Moreover, you can choose the platform you are conversant with.

Step #2: Search for a List of Disposable Email Romains on GitHub Gist

To bypass protocols, search for “disposable email domains” in the search field to sort the most recently updated disposable email domains on the top.

Search for a List of Disposable Email Romains on GitHub Gist

 

Step #3: Search for “Disposable Email Domains on Pastebin” on the Search Engine

Here we recommend that you search for “pastebin.com disposable email domains” on your favourite search engine to ensure that you have the best result on the first page.

Step #4: Find the Domain of the Email Address

As you can see from the image above, pastebin.com appeared in all the searches because we included the domain name in our search.

Find the Domain of the Email Address

Step #5: Inspect if the Email Domain is included in the List of Disposable Email Domains 

From the list on the website, look or search for the exact email domain by using your keyboard shortcut (CTRL + F) or Command-F, depending on your device's operating system.

From the search result, if you find the domain in the database, it simply means that the email found is disposable.

Step #6: To Check other Emails, Repeat Step 5 Over and Over Again

If the email address is strange, we recommend that you also check other sources of disposable email domains to ensure that you have the best result before concluding.

Method 3: Using Email Verification Tools to Detect the Disposable Email Address

To detect disposable email addresses using email verification tools, follow the steps below:

Step #1: Choose Your Favorite Email Verification Tool

In this section, you can decide to use a web-based application to detect disposable email addresses or an application programming interface (API).

By using email verification APIs, you can integrate them into websites and applications. 

This will automatically check any email that is submitted to the platform to check if it is disposable or not.

Moreover, when using web-based email verification tools, you need to input the email addresses into the vendors’ platforms.

Step #2: Search for an Email Verification Tool Provider

Using your favourite search engine, search for “email verification tool provider.”

We recommend that you use some online marketplace such as Capterra and G2.

Next type “email verification API” or “email verification tool” in the provided search box that you will see in the platform.

Search for an Email Verification Tool Provider

Step #3: Type in the Email Address you Wish to Verify

By using the search field which is on the vendor’s website, you will be able to check the email address you wish to verify.

For instance, let’s consider using [email protected] as an example.

Type in the Email Address you Wish to Verify

Step #4: Click on the Search Button as seen in the Image Above

When you click on the search button, it will automatically create an API call on the platform or perform a lookup on the entire website.

You can use any of the above methods to check if the email domain is a disposable email domain or not.

This search button will also trigger other tools in the platform to perform other checks without you doing it manually.

Step #5: Now Identify if the Email is Disposable

From the result that you will get, check out to find the field to know if the email address you typed is disposable or not.

If the result brings “True,” it means that the email address is disposable. Else (if it displays “False”) the email is not disposable.

Moreover, some platforms can display "Yes" and "No" for disposable email and non-disposable email.

Now Identify if the Email is Disposable

Depending on the best method that you intend to use, all three methods we elucidated here can be used to detect disposable email addresses.

Moreover, if you intend to manually detect these disposable email addresses, you can follow the methods that involve the user manually checking email domain databases.

On the other hand, we recommend using an email verification API to auto-check lots of disposable emails at the same time.

Are Temporary Email Addresses Traceable and Legal?

No! You cannot trace disposable email addresses since the user’s information is not submitted on the disposable email generator platform.

Moreover, disposable email addresses are quite legal in all the countries of the world.

Can you Recover a Temporary Email Address?

No! Since temporary email addresses usually expire within a few days, you cannot recover them once they have been deleted from the server.

How Long Can a Temporary Email Last?

Most temporary email addresses last for a few days while some last for a few minutes.

Conclusion

This guide detailed how you can detect disposable email addresses using different methods that we discussed here.