7 Effective Ways To Find Anyone's Email Address (2024)

You can find almost anyone’s email address, even if it isn’t publicly available.

I spent almost a year building an email finder tool, so I’ve learnt a thing or two about finding email addresses.

In this article, I’ll share 7 effective ways to find someone’s email address:

1. Use an email finder tool
2. Check data breaches
3. See if it exists on social media
4. Search Google
5. Guess (and test it)
6. Export emails from LinkedIn
7. Email their website

Note: This article only helps you find business email addresses. These methods do not allow you to find personal email addresses.

1. Use an email finder tool

The best way to find someone’s email address is by using an email finder tool.

The reason why this is the best method is because it’s the most efficient.

Email finder tools implement many of the things that I mention in this article, so that you don’t have to do them all individually; instead, you can search for someone’s email address in the tool, and it’ll check each step for you.

Email finder tools allow you to enter a prospect’s name and website into a search bar, and will then find their email address.

Not all email finder tools are created equal.

You can see which tools are best in my article 6 Best Email Finder Tools (Ranked By Accuracy).

2. Check data breaches

The second way to find someone’s email address is by checking to see if the email address in question matches any data breaches.

The site HaveIBeenPwned.com allows you to enter an email address, and it will tell you if that email address has been involved in any data breaches.

If an email address is found in a data breach, then you know that that email address is real, since it wouldn’t be in a data breach if it never existed.

It is possible that the email address is no longer active, since a data breach match might imply that the email address existed in the past, but does not guarantee that it’s still active. However, most people don’t change their email address often, so if an email address is found in a data breach, then it’s most likely still active.

Most people have email addresses that follow the same common formats, such as [email protected] or [email protected].

As a result, you can guess someone’s email address by using these common formats, and then entering them into HaveIBeenPwned.com to see if there are any matches.

If you use Emailchaser’s Email Finder, then it will do this for you automatically, saving you time.

3. See if it exists on social media

The third way to find someone’s email address is by checking to see if an email address is already associated with an existing social media account.

If you go to a signup form on any major social media site, such as Twitter, and you enter an email address when signing up for a new account, it will tell you if that email address is already being used with an existing account.

If an email address is already associated with an existing social media account, then you know that that email address is real.

If you use Emailchaser’s Email Finder tool, then it will automatically check all major social media sites to see if an email address is already associated with an existing account.

4. Search Google

The fourth way to find someone’s email address is by searching on Google.

If you enter an email address into Google, surrounded by quotation marks, and click search, it will return all web pages containing that exact email address that are indexed on the web.

This method isn’t 100% accurate, so it’s important to always click the Google results, and manually verify that the email address is actually showing on the pages in the results.

Additionally, this method only works for email addresses that are publicly available and indexed on the web. The previously mentioned methods can find email addresses that aren’t publicly available.

As mentioned above, most people have email addresses that follow common formats, such as [email protected] or [email protected] - this means that you can guess someone’s email address, and enter it into Google (surrounded by quotation marks), and see if it returns any results.

If you use Emailchaser’s Email Finder, then it does this for you automatically.

5. Guess (and test it)

Since most people use the same common email formats, you can guess someone’s email address, and then verify if that email address is valid.

For example, most people use email formats such as [email protected] or [email protected]. You can enter these formats into Emailchaser’s Email Verifier tool, and see if they are valid. However, it would be much more effective to use their Email Finder tool instead.

Additionally, you could enter these email addresses into Gmail, and if the email is valid, then it will show the user’s profile picture. This method doesn’t always work, but is worth trying.

6. Export emails from LinkedIn

The sixth way to find someone’s email address is by using Emailchaser’s LinkedIn Email Finder extension to export leads with their email addresses from LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is LinkedIn’s paid lead database. It allows you to search for leads with over 25 search filters.

The only issue is that Sales Navigator doesn’t give you the email address of each lead, since they want you to message leads directly through their platform.

The problem is that you can only message 50 peope per month with LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

Fortunately, there is a way to bypass these limitations and contact as many people as you want.

Using Emailchaser’s LinkedIn Email Finder extension, you can export your leads from Sales Navigator with their email addresses as a .csv file. You can then upload these leads to your sales CRM or cold email sending tool (like Emailchaser).

Emailchaser’s extension uses a proprietary email finding software to find the email address of each lead on LinkedIn, even when their email is not publicly available.

This is an effective way to find peoples’ email addresses at scale.

7. Email their website

The final way to find someone’s email address is by emailing their company’s website through their contact page, and asking them to forward your email to the relevant person.

This is a last resort tactic, reserved for when you are getting desperate.

However, it can work in some cases, so it’s worth trying. It’s important that your email is relevant and concise, otherwise they won’t forward your email to the person that you’re trying to get in contact with.

I recommend that you read my article How To Write A Cold Email (6-Step Process). In this article, I teach you how to write a concise email that gets responses.

Frequently asked questions

Final thoughts

The best way to find someone’s email address is by using an email finder tool.

I recommend that you use Emailchaser’s Email Finder, since it incorporates everything mentioned in this article.

If you want to learn how to write emails that get responses, then check out my article How To Write A Sales Email (7-Step Process).

You may also enjoy my article Should You Use A Subdomain Or New Domain For Cold Email?