Email validator & extractor — check and pull addresses
An email validator checks whether an address can actually receive mail — without sending anything — by testing its syntax, its domain and the domain's MX records. Carbide's free Email Validator runs all three checks in seconds, suggests fixes for common typos, and never stores the addresses you check.
Its partner, the Email Extractor, works the other way around: paste any messy text and it pulls out every address — deduped, optionally sorted, ready to copy. Together they cover both halves of list hygiene: finding addresses and confirming they are worth keeping.
How to check if an email is valid without sending anything
A real validity check has three layers, and none of them involves sending a message. First comes syntax: exactly one @, a legal local part, a dotted domain, no stray spaces or double dots. Then the domain itself — does it exist at all? Finally, MX records: is that domain actually set up to receive mail? The Email Validator runs all three and gives a per-address verdict with the exact reason when something fails.
- Paste one address — or a whole list separated by commas, semicolons or new lines; duplicates are removed automatically.
- Read the instant verdict for each address, with the specific problem named: missing @, illegal characters, double dots.
- Watch the MX column — "found" means the domain runs mail servers; "missing" means messages to it will bounce.
- Copy the clean list of valid addresses with one click.
What MX records are and why they matter
An MX (mail exchanger) record is the DNS entry that tells the world which servers accept mail for a domain. If someone@example-shop.com looks perfectly formed but example-shop.com publishes no MX records, messages to it have nowhere to go. That is why the MX check catches a whole class of dead addresses a syntax check can never see: expired domains, misspelled company names, and domains that host a website but no mailboxes.
One honesty note: checking MX requires a DNS lookup, so the validator sends the domain name — only the domain, never the full address — as a standard DNS query, the same kind your browser makes when it opens any website. The syntax and typo checks run entirely on your device, and nothing you paste is stored anywhere.
Fix the gmial.com class of typos before they bounce
In everyday lists, typos beat dead accounts as the top cause of bounces — and they cluster around a handful of providers. The validator recognizes the classics: gmial.com, gamil.com and gnail.com become gmail.com; hotnail.com becomes hotmail.com; yaho.com becomes yahoo.com; outlok.com becomes outlook.com; and a trailing .con or .cmo becomes .com.
The matching is deliberately careful. Brand fixes apply under any ending — hotnail.co.uk is caught just like hotnail.com — while ambiguous endings such as .co are left alone, because they are legitimate on their own and inside suffixes like .co.uk. When a fix is found, the suggestion keeps your local part and casing untouched, so accepting it is one decision, not a re-type.
Extract every address from any text — deduped and sorted
The Email Extractor solves the messier half of the job: the addresses are in there somewhere — a long reply-all thread, a CSV export, a web page's HTML source, a support log — and you need them out. Paste the text and it finds every address instantly, even when one sits flush against punctuation like <name@company.com> or to:name@company.com.
Three switches shape the output: dedupe removes case-insensitive duplicates while keeping the first spelling it saw, lowercase normalizes everything, and sort puts the list in A-to-Z order. Pick newline, comma or semicolon separators, then copy the result straight into a Bcc field or a spreadsheet. Everything runs in your browser — the text you paste is never uploaded.
Clean a list end to end — extract, then validate
The two tools chain into a list-cleaning workflow that takes about two minutes:
- Paste the raw source into the Email Extractor and copy the deduped, sorted result.
- Paste that list into the Email Validator and accept any typo suggestions it offers.
- Copy only the valid addresses — the would-have-bounced entries never make it into your send.
- Personalize the actual messages with Mail Merge, which fills {{placeholders}} from rows of data — the email signature and mail merge guide covers that composition side end to end.
Nothing stored, no list harvesting — unlike the SaaS funnels
Search for an email checker and most top results are funnels: a free taste of a few checks, a sign-up wall, then a quote for cleaning your list on their servers. That business model requires holding your list — your addresses become their data.
Carbide's pair works the opposite way because there is no paid tier to upsell. No account, no credit counter, no export fee. The Email Extractor is fully client-side, so pasted text never leaves your device. The Email Validator's checks run locally too; its only network traffic is the per-domain DNS query described above. Nothing you check is logged, stored or added to any list — an address you validate here stays yours.
Frequently asked questions
How do I check if an email address is valid without sending a message?
Run it through an email validator: the syntax check catches malformed addresses, and the MX lookup confirms the domain actually runs mail servers. Together they catch most bad addresses without a single message being sent.
Is my email list uploaded when I validate or extract?
No. The Email Extractor runs entirely in your browser — pasted text never leaves your device. The validator's syntax and typo checks are local too; only domain names (never full addresses) are sent as standard DNS queries for the MX check, and nothing is stored.
Can I validate emails in bulk, and is there a limit?
Yes — paste a whole list separated by commas, semicolons or new lines and every address is checked at once, deduped automatically. There is no artificial cap and no credit system; the practical limit is your browser's memory.
Does the extractor work on CSV files or HTML source?
Yes. It reads plain text, so paste anything — CSV rows, a page's HTML source, server logs, a whole email thread — and it finds every address regardless of the formatting around it.
Can a validator confirm that a mailbox really exists?
Not with certainty — no tool honestly can. Syntax and MX checks confirm the address is well-formed and its domain accepts mail, but only the receiving server knows whether that specific mailbox exists, and most block such probing. Even paid services label those addresses "risky" for the same reason.
Validating before you send and extracting without retyping are the two chores every email list actually needs. The Email Validator and Email Extractor do both free, with no sign-up and without keeping your addresses — paste your list and see what passes.