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Hi! Total newbie question here: Is there a way to see if an email address is active? I'm tired of emailing old co-workers at their last email address that they gave me and getting the letter rejected because they're no longer working there. I'd like to run a command to check if the account's still open (finger? ping?). Thanks!
not many ppl run finger anymore and ping won't help you in this situation
just email the address ... but you've done that already ;)
Suggest you have a look at Advanced Email Verifier. It may be the type of software you are looking for. I use it with good results, although not 100%. It will not work with aol addresses
http://www.glocksoft.com
If you can connect via smtp to the email server you think the address is on then you could use the vrfy command
http://www.gordano.com/kb.htm?q=319
If The Adress is obsolete the Webmaster will send you a failure report otherwise it is still active.It is also possible that your co workers no longer use that id.They might have switched over to a new one.Just contact them and get the new ID
If you're maintaining an address book for work then one solution would be to mass mail everybody with a simple message that simply tells them of your purpose and instructs them to not reply. That way you should only get bounce backs from the IDs that are no longer current.
As a note, this could be interpreted as spam by some people/mail servers. But I'd think it would still cause a bounce back if the address doesn't exist anymore.
Maybe I haven't understood,Quote:
I'm tired of emailing old co-workers at their last email address that they gave me and getting the letter rejected because they're no longer working there
It would seem that your friends' workplaces are acting as their e-mail provider? hence the only way to find out if an account is active is to send an e-mail, and see if it gets accepted or rejected.
Any other approach is likely to be interpreted as an attack, and is not to be recommended.
Just a thought