How To Ping An Email Address To Validate It

July 1, 2022

Do you ever wonder whether an email address is a legitimate or a false email address when it bounces back? Probably the easiest method to handle this is to ping an email address, and in this article, we will demonstrate how to ping and validate an email address.

How to Ping an Email Address to Validate it

Validating emails by pinging different addresses is fairly straightforward, and just about anyone can do it using a PC. Of course, the best way would be to actually send an email to the address, but you may wonder how to check if that email exists without really sending it.

The following article will introduce you to the technique of pinging an email address. The technique requires you to have a general understanding of how computers and networks work.

Table of Contents

What does Ping an Email Address Mean?

Most of us are familiar with what "ping" means in everyday speech--it usually communicates a notification from a mobile device.

Additionally, a ping is a diagnostic tool for troubleshooting connection problems. If you want to verify an email address specifically, it is a query tool that can assist you.

The main purpose of the ping tool is to resolve connection problems. An electronic pinging is a signal sent by one computer to another over the internet with the purpose of ensuring that the two devices are in contact with each other.

Email pings involve sending a query to the server of the email address being accessed and checking if you have successfully established a connection with the service provider.

Essentially, it is a basic networking tool that lets us verify an email address without having to send a message to that address, and it can be done on any computer that supports digital communication, no matter what type of system you use.

How to Ping an Email Address?

Usually, sending a test email and checking whether it bounces back is the easiest method to verify an email, however, doing so can damage the reputation of your domain and result in you being added to spam lists of users. The best alternative is to ping an email address as it allows you to determine if an address is active without needing to send an email to that address.

Pinging an email is a way of checking whether or not it was sent according to its domain records. Basically, when an email is sent, it goes to an SMTP server, which check's the records of the domain's MX (mail exchange). Therefore, when the email is sent to [email protected], it will be checked against the gmail.com domain. When records are found, next you need to check if the username of the sender is present.

By applying the preceding principle, you will be able to perform this verification. This procedure will require the use of a Windows OS, a Telnet client, and a command-line interface.

How to Ping an Email Address?[Step-by-step Process]

Step 1. Enable Telnet

Navigate to the Control Panel in the Start menu of your PC or laptop. In the Control Panel, select the Programs section, then select the Features section. Click on the "Turn Windows features on or off" button and in a pop-up window with a list of those features, select Telnet in order to activate it. Click on OK and wait for a few seconds, and the process will be complete.

Step 2: Finding the mail server

Type cmd in the search box on the search screen of your computer and then press Enter to open the command prompt. You need to type the command "nslookup -type=mx domain.com" into your command prompt window. For this example, we will type: "nslookup -type=mx gmail.com" because the domain is Gmail.

If you wish to check your email account, type the following command into the command prompt, replacing "gmail.com" with the domain name of your email, and press Enter.

windownslookup –type=mx gmail.com

You should now be able to see a list of MX records for the domain through the command prompt:

  • gmail.com MX preference = 20, mail exchanger = alt2.gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com
  • gmail.com MX preference = 40, mail exchanger = alt4.gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com
  • gmail.com MX preference = 5, mail exchanger = gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com
  • gmail.com MX preference = 30, mail exchanger = alt3.gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com
  • gmail.com MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = alt1.gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com

Step 3. Connect to the server

As If you examine a certain domain, you may detect that there are multiple MX records, with varying preference levels. Try sending an email from that domain to one of the MX records.

This step is again accomplished through Telnet, so we type in these commands and click Enter:

This is what you will get in response to your command:

Step 4. “Talk” to the Server

You will initiate communication with the domain's server by pressing 'HELLO' and 'ENTER' on your keyboard. Then type the address you're pinging as follows: "mail From: [email protected]" "Enter," then type "rcpt to: [email protected]." Here you need to replace "YourEmail" for your email address and "CheckEmail" with the addresses you want to ping.

Step 5: Check the Validity

Once the ping is done, you should receive an "OK" for the response if the email address actually exists. If it does not exist, the response will be either "Does Not Exist" or "Disabled".

Check the Validity

How does the verdict stand? Below are a few things to watch for:

  • A valid email: The response is OK.
  • An invalid email address will result in a 550 error (e.g., "The email account you tried to reach no longer exists.").

Common error messages include:

  • The email account that you tried to reach does not exist
  • The email account that you tried to reach is disabled

That's all there is to it. Although the error code 550 indicates an invalid email address or an incorrect email address, the "positive" response will be signified by code 250. Also, be aware of the possibility of your IP being blacklisted if you regularly use this method to check domains such as Gmail, Yahoo,When it bounces back, doTheactually to send an email to the addressmethod. However,sendingsender's usernameyou nextnd MSN.

Why is an Email Verification Tool a Better Choice Than Pinging an Email?

It is often best to use an email verification tool to verify email addresses without sending emails. Many email marketers use this option since they send plenty of emails.

Verifying the validity of emails is automated with the email verification tool. Your mailing list is all you need. The tools have a few advantages:

  • Email verification tools tend to be very accurate, which is perhaps their main advantage. They ensure that only valid addresses are included in your mailing list.
  • The tool-based approach is extremely fast compared to pinging the server. It is also convenient since you don't need to put an extra effort to check email addresses. It is simply a matter of uploading your list and letting it do the rest of the work.

Verifying email addresses with a tool is the most efficient and convenient option. This is certainly a must-have tool for busy digital marketers.

Conclusion

You can ping email boxes quite easily if you know how to do it. However, it is certainly not an easy process. Pinging an email address is rarely as easy as it sounds.

Having to ping thousands of email addresses is enough to make you feel completely tired and it may be too much to handle at one time. If you have one or two email addresses, this method makes sense. In contrast, if you are verifying an email list, you need a quicker, easier, and more reliable way to verify your email list.

VerifyBee provides an automated email validation service that checks your list in real-time and helps you avoid bounced emails, ensuring that a majority of your emails will reach your customers.

The process of verifying your email list shouldn't be complex or time-consuming. So, don’t wait any longer. By signing up today, make your email verification process quick and affordable.

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