email finderHow to Find Someone's Email Address (Work Emails for Outreach)

Here's how to find someone's email address for work outreach: look at what the person and their company have published, ask if you can, work out the company's email pattern from their name and domain, and check the address before you send. If you'd rather skip the manual steps, a free email finder does the search from a name and a domain.

This guide is about professional addresses that you need for a legitimate reason, such as a sales, partnership or press contact. It doesn't cover personal accounts or private data. You need the person's full name, their company's name or website, and about 10 minutes.

Short answer

Here is how to find someone's email address in five steps:

1. Confirm the name and company: the spelling they use at work, and that they still work there.
2. Look at public pages: the company website, their own site or bio, and profiles where they list an address.
3. Ask: use a contact form, the company's general address or a mutual contact.
4. Apply the company's pattern: turn the name and domain into a likely address, such as alex.rivera@example.com.
5. Check before you send: run the address through an email verifier.

The shortcut: enter the name and domain in the free email finder, then check what it returns.

Before you start: who you're looking for

You're looking for the work address of a business contact, and you have a reason to write to them. That reason matters: it shapes your first email, and it's what makes the outreach welcome rather than spam.

Personal addresses aren't found this way. If someone hasn't made an address public or offered it to you, ask for it instead of hunting for it.

Look at what they've published

The quickest answer is often an address the person or their company has already posted. Check these places first (Salesforge, IONOS):

• The company website: contact, team, about and press pages often list named people with their addresses.
• Their own site or bio: a personal website, a portfolio, or an author bio on a blog they write for.
• Event and publication pages: conference speaker pages, podcast show notes and author pages.
• Public profiles: if the person has listed a work address on a public profile, for example on LinkedIn, you can use it. If no address is shown, that's their choice; message them instead (see the next section).

A search engine helps you find these pages. Search for the person's name together with the word email, or for the company's domain in quotes:

"Alex Rivera" "email"
"@example.com"

The second search shows pages that mention addresses at that domain, which is also how you spot the company's pattern in a later step.

Use only what is publicly posted. Don't scrape sites or profiles, and don't try to get around privacy settings to see contact details the person hasn't shared.

Ask for it

The most direct way to get someone's email address is to ask. It's also the one that works when nothing is public (Verpex):

• Use the company's contact form or general address (info@, hello@) and ask to be put in touch with the person by name.
• Ask a mutual contact for an introduction or the address.
• Send a short message on a platform you both use, such as LinkedIn. Say who you are and why you want to write, and ask for the best address.

A clear reason in one or two sentences gets more replies than a vague request. You also end up with an address the person chose to give you.

Work out the address from a name and domain

If you know the person's name and their company's domain, you can often work out the address. Many companies build work addresses from a form of the name plus the domain. For an invented contact, Alex Rivera at example.com, common forms include:

• alex.rivera@example.com
• alexrivera@example.com
• arivera@example.com
• alex@example.com

To find out which one a company uses, find one real address of someone else who works there (from the steps above) and match it to their name. If you find s.lee@example.com for Sam Lee, the company likely uses first initial, dot, last name, so Alex would be a.rivera@example.com.

Our guide to company email formats has the full table of formats, the steps to find a company's pattern, and what breaks it, such as nicknames and a second domain.

A pattern gives you a good guess, not a confirmed address. Check it before you send.

Find it with the email finder

To find someone's email address for free without the manual work, use the free email finder. Enter the person's full name and the company domain (for example example.com), and you'll see an address if one is found. It's free with no signup, for up to 5 searches per hour.

For a list of contacts, the bulk email finder takes a CSV or Excel file with names and company domains. It costs 5 credits per email found and nothing when no address is found, and new accounts get 200 free credits. If you're comparing tools, our Hunter.io alternative comparison compares Hunter.io with our email finder on price per found email, credit expiry and free options.

Check the address before you send

A guessed or found address can still be wrong. The mailbox may not exist, the person may have left, or the company may use a different pattern for some staff. Some domains are catch-all: they accept mail for any address, so you can't tell whether a specific mailbox exists.

Paste the address into the free email verifier. It needs no account, and you get 5 free checks per hour.

Treat the result like this:

• The verifier flags a problem: don't send. Try the next likely form of the name, or look for another real address at the company.
• The domain is catch-all: the address can't be confirmed either way. Our guide to catch-all emails and whether to send to them covers your options.
• The result is clean: you can use the address. A clean result lowers the risk of a bounce, but it doesn't guarantee delivery.

Troubleshooting

Nothing about the person is public. Ask instead: use the company's contact page or general address and ask to be put in touch with them by name.

You found two different patterns at the company. This often comes down to older and newer staff following different rules. Build the address both ways and check each one with the verifier.

The email finder returns nothing. The person may use a nickname or an uncommon format, or the company may use a different domain for email than for its website. Try the full first name, a known nickname, or the company's other domains. A missing result doesn't mean the address doesn't exist, so try the other steps in this guide or ask the person.

The domain is catch-all. The address stays uncertain. Send with care: keep these contacts in a small batch and watch your bounce rate before sending more.

Use what you find responsibly

This is general information, not legal advice. Rules for commercial email and personal data depend on where you and your contact are; if you're unsure, ask your legal team.

Finding an address doesn't give you permission to send anything you like to it. Write for a clear reason, include an easy way to opt out, and stop when someone asks you to.

Don't scrape private data, bypass privacy settings, or collect personal addresses. When you use our email finder, you confirm you have a legitimate interest in finding the contact. Data isn't stored permanently, and logs are kept for up to 30 days for debugging. Our privacy policy has the details.

FAQ

Can I find someone's email address for free? Yes. The steps in this guide use only public pages, a search engine and a direct request. The free email finder and email verifier each give you 5 free uses per hour without an account.

Is it possible to find someone's email address? Often, for a work address: it may be published, the person may give it to you, or you can work it out from the company's pattern. It isn't always possible. Some people have no public address, use an uncommon format, or work at a catch-all domain where an address can't be confirmed. In that case, ask them.

Can I find someone's personal email address? This guide doesn't cover personal addresses. If you want someone's personal email, ask them for it.

Is it legal to look up someone's email address? It depends on where you and the person are, and on what you do with the address. Rules such as CAN-SPAM in the US and the GDPR in the EU set requirements for commercial email and for handling personal data, which can include work addresses that identify a person. This is general information, not legal advice; ask your legal team if you're unsure.