How to find someone's email address for business outreach: 9 methods
From the free guess to the checked lookup, ranked by how often each one is right. This is about work emails for business contact, not finding people.
By Hasan, founder of HeyEnrich
Most guides on this topic are a list of browser extensions. Here's the order I'd actually use, with the catch on each. The methods go from free and slow to paid and instant; the one rule that applies to all of them is at the end.
Nine methods, ranked
- 01
Check the company's email format
Most companies use one pattern for everyone. The free /tools/email-format-checker shows the pattern and its share. Once you know it, you know the address.
- 02
Permutate and test
Generate the common patterns with /tools/email-permutator, then paste them into a verifier. Free, works on small lists, useless on catch-all domains.
- 03
Look at the website
Press pages, team pages and PDFs leak addresses. Search `site:company.com "@company.com"`. Slow, but it reveals the pattern.
- 04
Read the LinkedIn contact section
Some people list an email on their profile. Rare for executives, common for founders and recruiters.
- 05
Ask the switchboard
Calling and asking for someone's email works more often than it should. One call, one address.
- 06
A finder with a name and domain
Tools like ours take a name and company, pick the pattern and check the mailbox. 1 credit if found, nothing if not. Fastest for one-offs.
- 07
A LinkedIn URL lookup
Paste the profile URL and get the checked work email, plus personal email and mobile if you want them. Best for lists exported from Sales Navigator.
- 08
Bulk enrichment of a CSV
Upload a file with names and companies, get it back with the emails filled in and a state per row. For anything over 50 people.
- 09
An API call from your own tool
If you run inbound forms or a CRM, enrich automatically on creation. One request, one record, a state per field.
The one rule
Verify before you send. A guessed address that bounces hurts your domain's reputation, and a few bounces in a row can land every later email in spam. Whatever method found the address, run it through a verifier, and send to catch-all addresses in smaller batches.
What's legal
Contacting someone at work about work is lawful under legitimate interest in the EU and UK and under CAN-SPAM in the US, as long as you say who you are, make it easy to opt out, and stop when asked. Personal addresses for business contact are more sensitive; recruiters do it routinely, but keep the message short and the opt-out one click.
Skip to method six
Paste a name and company. We show what we found, masked, before you sign up.