What is a Reverse Email Lookup and How do you Conduct Them?

An average email user can receive around 16 malicious emails per month. Therefore, finding the identity of unknown email senders is vital.

Keeping that in mind, we analyzed 13 different ways to conduct a reverse email lookup. We specifically based it on the working, accuracy, intuitiveness, pricing, and more. 

So, here’s your ultimate guide with all our findings to conduct an effective reverse email lookup.

Table of Contents

1. What is a Reverse email lookup?
2. How to conduct a reverse email lookup?
3. Which email lookup tool and chrome extensions should I use for reverse search
4. Linkedin Sales Navigator Extension for Gmail : Still a Viable Option?
5. Unable to do your reverse email lookup?
6. The clever tip for reverse email lookup
   

What is a Reverse email lookup?

Now, how do you find a person’s email address? You use their name. In a reverse email lookup, you reverse the process (just as the name suggests), i.e, you use the email address to find the name and other pieces of information about the sender. 

So, basically, by conducting a reverse email search you can identify and extract the personal information of your unknown email sender that they’ve made public on online platforms.

If you are thinking that this is going to be a long, tiresome process, then let us happily break it to you. You couldn’t be more wrong. Reverse email lookup is easy, effective, and quick. You will know it once you conduct the process.

How do I conduct a reverse email lookup?

Looking up the identity of an unknown email sender is not a herculean task. You can effectively do so, by using some simple reverse email lookup methods. 

1. The good old Google search

Yes. You can rely on Google for finding the details of your email sender. Using Google search is one of the most convenient, yet efficient methods to doing a free reverse email lookup.

If the sender has registered himself in websites, forums, or any other platform, Google can simply track down the name and other details.

All you have to do is this. Drop the email address in your Google search bar and press enter. Google will display as many results as it can find. Run through the title and the description and see if it contains information that matches the email address.

You can even make your search more specific by quoting the email address, i.e ” [email protected]” and then hit enter. By doing so, you will see only the results where the email address actually appears.

Employing Google’s search engine can be a great way to find the details of your email sender, but it can also be time-consuming and confusing especially when the person has not used the specific email address anywhere else.

2. Search effortlessly via email lookup tools

You can use email look-up tools or specifically reverse email lookup tools to find the identity of your unknown sender in less than a minute. 

These lookup tools are powerful enough to search extensively through web results, social media networks, and even the invisible web to locate hints associated with the email address provided. 

If the given email address is publicly available in any of the mentioned areas, your reverse email lookup tool can easily locate the details of your anonymous sender. When that’s the case, email lookup tools are your safest bet.

3. Observe and research domain name

You can use the domain name on the email address to know more about the sender. Let’s say the email address is [email protected]. Here, ‘example.com’ is the email domain. Now what you can do is, search the domain and conduct research on it to find the email sender’s identity. However, do note that this method is comparatively time-consuming and tiresome.

4. Analyze the services offered 

If the unknown email you received is related to any service or product, you can simply search by the name of the product or service offered and then trace details about the sender. This method of reverse email search can also be a lengthy one.

Which email lookup tool and chrome extensions should I use for reverse search?

While many prefer tools, there are a few others who prefer chrome extensions to do their reverse email search. Luckily, the market offers some great reverse email lookup tools and chrome extensions that you can use for your search. 

1. Clearbit Connect- Supercharge Gmail

Clearbit Connect– Supercharge Gmail is a chrome extension that lets you conduct reverse email search effortlessly. This extension lets you find all the essential details of the sender like location, social profiles, job title, and much more. 

Clearbit is arguably the best free option and lets you find all social media accounts connected to the email sender without even leaving your Gmail inbox, making it quite intuitive.

Pricing: Free 

2. Discoverly

With around 32k users, Discoverly is a free reverse email search extension that is quite popular in the Chrome Store. 

Discoverly essentially finds someone’s social media profiles by email addresses, so that you can easily browse through the profile of the anonymous email sender and collect only the relevant details you need.

This chrome extension lets you do reverse email lookup on Gmail, Twitter, Linkedin, Hubspot, Boomerang, Right Inbox, and a lot more platforms.

Pricing: Free

3. Email Qualifier Extension

Manycontact’s Email Qualifier Extension is yet another chrome extension that lets you identify social media profiles that are connected with the anonymous email address. Once you provide the email, the extension gives you a bulk view of all the social media profiles related to that specific email. 

Also, in Gmail, you directly find out which emails own social media accounts and view them. Then, the reverse email lookup details can be downloaded if you want.

Pricing : Free 

4. BeenVerified.com

BeenVerified is clearly a popular choice when it comes to reverse email search. The tool explores tons of social media platforms to retrieve the most relevant details of the email address provided. 

After doing the reverse email lookup, the tool not only gives you information based on category but also prepares an entire report to help you get a comprehensive idea about the identity of the email sender. 

You can find some crucial details like the geographical location of the sender, name, age, photos, job and education history, contact information, and many more. It also searches for the criminal records of the sender, if any. 

Yet on the downside, you can’t rely on the free version of the tool because it more or less directs you to try a paid plan rather than actually displaying the results.

Pricing: Request for a quote

5. Pipl

Pipl claims to be an identity information platform that lets you uncover all the possible publicly available details of an unknown email. It works like a search engine and fetches your details when you enter the email address. 

This reverse email lookup tool has an extensive database and displays the website where the email is registered along with other reliable details. 

Two of the few stumbling blocks would be that the reliability of the information depends on how exactly you give the input and you will have to enter the country code manually which interrupts the smooth experience.

Pricing: $298/mo with Annual Subscription

6. Polymail

If you are a hardcore Mac user, then Polymail is your go-to reverse email lookup tool. The best part about Polymail is that it displays the profile of your anonymous email sender, just beside their email. This way you can directly compare the information with the email address and the body, thus increasing the chances of finding the right person.

Polymail is one of the best free reverse email lookup tools, however, the plans are more suited for bigger organizations and not really for small scale businesses or individuals.

Pricing: $13 per user/month with monthly subscription. Free Trial Available.

7. Mailbird

If Polymail is for Mac, then Mailbird is for Windows. Yes, Mailbird can be an excellent reverse email lookup tool if you are a Windows user. The tool is quite intuitive and lets you directly find information on LinkedIn about the email sender. Well, it’s one thing to provide a friendly interface, it’s another thing to give ample functionalities. 

Unfortunately, this reverse email lookup tool is not exactly feature-rich though the limited features are reliable.

Pricing: $3.25 per month. Free Version available.

8. Social Catfish

Social Catfish is yet another free email lookup tool that is much popular for its reverse email search abilities. This powerful tool lets you find the social media profiles, online photos, contact numbers, addresses, and other specific details you need related to the email. They even claim to have the functionality of pulling up the IP address to provide adequate information about the sender’s location.    

Well, even with all these features, it’s hard to ignore the fact that Social Catfish does not actually help you validate emails.

Pricing: Request for a quote. Free Version Available

9. Integrate Hubspot and Sales Navigator (The Best Paid Option we found)

If your intention is to find the business potential of that unknown email, then this is arguably the best combination of tools you can opt for, especially if you have an account in Hubspot. You will also need to access Linkedin Sales Navigator, only then can you integrate it with Hubspot to perform the reverse email search. 

Now, here’s how the lookup works. After integrating with Sales Navigator, you will have to create a contact in Hubspot with just the email address. Your contact will then be tried to match with Linkedin Sales Navigator. Sales Navigator brings you the closest if not the most accurate match to the email and you just have to click ‘match’ to see your unknown sender’s Linkedin Sales Navigator profile. You can then collect all the details you need to analyze the business opportunities.

Evidently, to pull this off, you need accounts in both Hubspot and Linkedin Sales Navigator for Teams. For this particular use case you can use Hubspot for free but Sales Navigator for Teams can be a pricey alternative. However if accuracy matters to you, then this is a super-effective option.

Pricing: Hubspot – Free
Linkedin Sales Navigator for Teams – $135/ month

Linkedin Sales Navigator Extension for Gmail : Still a Viable Option?

Have you been researching about reverse email lookup for a while now? Then, you would have definitely come across Linkedin Sales Navigator Extension for Gmail. The extension did the reverse lookup for emails received in Gmail.

You will or maybe would have stumbled across articles that point to it as a great reverse email lookup extension. Well, it definitely was. Nevertheless, LinkedIn has unfortunately sunset the Sales Navigator extension due to low adoption. So, you don’t have to spend hours browsing for an extension that no longer exists.

Still no luck?! Unable to do your reverse email lookup?

Well, after all these attempts you may still be unable to find that anonymous email sender. When that’s the case it would be safe to say the chances are that the email address is invalid or hasn’t been used anywhere else. Another possibility is that the email might have been sent from an anonymous email website. So, it’s always best to start with verifying the unknown email address before you go into extensive searching. 

A Clever Tip!

Of course, some reverse email lookup tools do offer email verification, the likes of which are very expensive. Yet, you can go for it. But if you are really looking for a slightly cheaper or a free reverse email lookup tool (or service), you might not find the functionality mentioned above. 

When that’s the case, let us suggest a clever tactic to get the job done without burning a hole in your pocket. Use email verifiers and check if the email is validated before starting your reverse email lookup. 

If it’s strictly for business purposes, we would definitely suggest a slightly different method using SalesQL.

SalesQl is a feature-rich Linkedin email lookup tool that will let you identify the validity of the email in less than 60 seconds. 

You can conduct your reverse email lookup using a free tool and then swiftly verify the email and find other validated details of the sender like alternate email id, contacts etc. using SalesQL.

And what’s more?! It is free! You can use up to 100 credits without paying a penny! SalesQl in combination with a good reverse email lookup tool can really help you up the lookup game by a notch.

Cheers to successful reverse lookups!