How to find someone’s email online: 4 simple tools that work for me
(Updated Nov 2018)
What’s the best way to reach out to someone for the first time? These days, you could certainly try sending a direct message via Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram, but as popular as those platforms are, not everyone has the habit of monitoring every one of those platforms every single day.
While I have had success getting responses to my own outreach via social media, I’ve had much better success with email. In spite of the proliferation of social media, messaging apps, and networking apps, email still remains one of the most effective, professional ways to reach out directly to prospective hiring managers, clients, employers, partners, or investors if you want to get a meaningful, productive response.
The question is, how exactly do you find someone’s email? Below are four free tools that have worked well for me. Note, I’ve blurred out the actual emails here for the sake of the example people’s privacy.
1. CLEARBIT CONNECT (free)
Clearbit Connect is the tool I most often use first when I’m trying to find someone’s email addresses. They have both a Gmail and Outlook add-on. For example, if you want to use to Gmail add-on, follow these steps:
- Install the Clearbit Connect for Gmail Chrome extension.
- Open Gmail and click on the Clearbit Connect icon on the right.
- Click on Find emails.
- Enter the Company name, then the person’s name. You can also filter by Role & Seniority That’s it!
If Clearbit has the person’s email in their database, which they get from a variety of sources, the person’s email will be shown. For example, here’s what showed up when I tried to find the email of Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn:
And just like that, you have someone’s email. Across all the tools I’ve used, Clearbit is the one where I’ve had the most success.
2. ROCKETREACH (free)
If you sign up for a free account with RocketReach, you can sometimes get lucky in finding someone’s email. This works especially well if it’s someone who’s quite high profile, but I’ve also used it to find emails of everyday professionals.
Simply type in who you’re looking for, and RocketReach will give you a list of potential emails and the percentage success people have had using that email. For example, here’s what it looks like when I tried Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft:
I’ve had pretty good success with RocketReach, although I’ve found it to be less effective if you’re trying to find someone with a common name at a less well-known company because there are often so many results.
3. PROSPECT.IO (plans start at 99€/month)
Prospect.io is another useful tool to find emails, which I’ve found to be quite powerful. It includes some handy features organize and search the contacts you find along with CRM integrations and even direct emailing, which neither Clearbit nor RocketReach offer. So this can also double as a useful sales, CRM, and lead generation tool. To use Prospect.io, follow these steps:
- Create a Prospect.io account (at the time of this writing, plans start at 99€/month for 1,000).
- Install the Google Chrome Prospect.io extension by either visiting the Chrome web store or going to your Prospect.io setup screen, clicking on “Explore & Setup” in the left menu bar, then selecting “Extension” under Prospects.
3. Click on the purple Prospect.io extension button in your Chrome browser’s menu bar and search for someone using their First & Last name and company domain name.
Prospect.io offers a few handy features. After you found the person’s contact details, you can automatically save it into a specific list on Prospect.io.
Another handy feature of Prospect.io is to display ALL available contacts with a specific email domain. Simply go to the website of the company where your target contact works and use the “Domain Search” feature. For example, if you wanted to find all available contact details of WeWork employees, simply go to WeWork, click on the Prospect.io button, and all available contacts are displayed along with confidence levels.
In my own use of Prospect.io, I was able to find 100% of the contacts I was seeking, including some I couldn’t find using other tools I’ve listed here. So although this tool isn’t free, if prospecting is important to you, the fee may well be worth it.
4. WHOIS DIRECTORY DATA (free)
If you’re trying to reach out to someone who has a personal website, you can sometimes get lucky in finding their contact information embedded in their website’s WHOIS lookup information. I often use this approach to find the emails of independent business owners, solopreneurs, thought leaders, or writers.
Everyone who owns a website is required by law to share their contact details. This only works if they have NOT opted for contact detail privacy, although it seems more people are opting for privacy these days.
After trying many WHOIS lookup sites, I generally recommend my clients use the NameCheap WHOIS lookup tool. Namecheap is the same domain registrar I use for all my own websites. Here are all the steps to follow:
- Go to the WHOIS lookup tool. I use the NameCheap WHOiS lookup.
- Enter in the website address of the person you’re trying to contact.
- Scroll down to see the “Registrant’s Email” or “Admin Email.”
If you’re lucky, and the owner hasn’t opted for privacy, their email will just be sitting there. (I’ve blurred out the result here). I’ve found a lot of people’s contact details this way, but sometimes the email there is simply the domain registrar or other administrative contact.
These days, I don’t always have luck with this method because it seems more owners are opting for WHOIS contact privacy from their domain registrars to prevent people finding their emails this way.
ADDITIONAL TOOLS TO TRY- (Updated May 2019)
Since first writing this article, I’ve discovered a few other tools that also work well in uncovering people’s emails from people who have commented and shared their recommendations with me. Thanks to all who have. Here are a few I’ve tested out that seem to work well:
- GetProspect.io- offers similar functionality to Prospect.io mentioned above, but is free. I’ve found it to be a bit faster than Prospect.io, at least with LinkedIn contact searches.
- ContactOut- a Chrome extension that works exceptionally well. Gives you the option to reveal personal or work emails (or both)
- SignalHire- a Chrome extension that’s quite handy because it works across various social media networks to uncover emails. The free plan allows 5 email search credits per month. Thanks to Nikki Wilson for the suggestion.
GOOD LUCK!
Normally, one of these methods gets me the email I’m looking for, but it of course doesn’t work all the time, in which case I take my best shot at sending a Facebook Direct Message, Tweet, LinkedIn inMail or invitation with a message, or even an Instagram direct message. Sometimes, I simply search for my best guess at the person’s email via Google or Twitter Search to see if I get a lucky hit. While an infinite number of possibilities exist here, only a finite number of likelypossibilities exist based on common conventions like:
- First name: e.g., first[at]companyname.com
- First Initial + Last Name: first[at]companyname.com
- First Initial dot Last Name: f.last[at]companyname.com
- First Name + Last Initial: firstl[at]companyname.com
- First Name dot Last Initial: first.l[at]companyname.com
- First Name + Last Name: firstlast[at]companyname.com
- First Name dot Last Name: first.last[at]companyname.com
You could also replace the dots with hyphens. Or underscores.
I’d love to hear if one of these works for you or if you have other methods that have worked for you. Just leave a comment below. Good luck!
Did you enjoy this article?
Get my future articles on career change and personal branding sent straight to your inbox by joining my free career community. Also, to hear directly from people who have successfully reinvented their careers, tune into my Career Relaunch podcast for even more inspiration.
Joseph Liu is a Career & Personal Branding Strategist and host of the Career Relaunch Podcast based in London with a passion for helping people gain the clarity, confidence, and courage to pursue truly meaningful careers. Having gone through three major career changes himself, he now shares insights from building & relaunching global consumer brands to empower professionals and business owners to build & relaunch their personal brands at josephpliu.com. His unique approach is informed by 10 years of blue-chip marketing experience in the US & UK managing brands including Glad, Liquid-Plumr, Gü Desserts, and Häagen-Dazs combined with 500+ hours of professional career consulting. Check out Joseph’s TEDx Talk on Reshaping the Story of Your Career.
Stay in touch with Joseph on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, & Google+, Instagram, and of course, Medium.
This post was originally published on my Blog.
