Verify your Gmail contacts before you email them

1. 1
   In Gmail

   Export your Gmail contacts from Google Contacts

   1. On your computer, go to Google Contacts.
   2. At the left, under Labels, click the label you email.
   3. Check the box next to any contact, then at the top left, click Selection Actions then All.
   4. At the top right, click More actions then Export.
   5. Select Google CSV, then click Export.

   Tip

   PricklyMails only needs the addresses: open the file in a spreadsheet, keep the column of email addresses alone, and delete its header row before moving on.

   Tip

   To verify every contact rather than one label, skip the second step: Selection Actions then All then selects all your contacts.

   SourceGmail's official help center

   • Export, back up, or restore contacts (opens in a new tab)support.google.com
   • View, group & share contacts (opens in a new tab)support.google.com
2. 2
   In PricklyMails

   Verify the file in PricklyMails

   1. In the dashboard, open Batches and click New batch.
   2. Drop the file you exported from Gmail: a .csv or .txt with one address per line, no header row and no quotes. A header row would count as an address in the estimate, though it is never billed, and a quoted address would not be verified: the report lists both as malformed. You can also paste the list.
   3. The dashboard counts the addresses and shows the estimated cost in tokens before anything is sent, then you click Submit batch. A batch holds at least 20 addresses, and your plan sets the largest list it can hold.
   4. The list is verified in the background. Once the batch is done, open it and click Download report: you get a CSV with a row for each address of your file, giving its verdict, its reason, its score and its recommendation, with the dashboard's labels.

   Note

   Download the report from the browser that sent the list: that browser is what keeps the addresses, for the 16 most recent batches at most. Our servers, in Germany, only keep a one-way fingerprint of each one.

   What the report says

   Every address gets a recommendation: the action to take. The report writes it with the dashboard's label; the API returns a short form of it.

   Send

   The address is valid, or hosted by a large provider that accepts every address without confirming any. Send as usual.

   Review

   A domain that accepts any address (catch-all), a generic address such as contact@, a full mailbox, or a server that never answered, or refused to. Take a look before you send.

   Remove

   The address does not exist, its domain cannot receive mail, or it is disposable, mistyped or malformed. Take it out.

   Note

   A malformed address is never verified: the batch counts it under "Malformed addresses", and the report still lists it, with the verdict "Invalid", the reason "Malformed address" and the recommendation "Remove", so you take it out of Gmail with the others. A duplicate, counted under "Duplicates removed", appears only once.

   Behind each recommendation sit a verdict (Valid, Risky, Invalid or Not verifiable), a reason and a score from 0 to 100, each in its own column of the report. When a server never answers, the address comes back "Not verifiable" and the checks that got no answer are refunded.

3. 3
   In Gmail

   Bring the result back into your Gmail contacts

   Open the report in a spreadsheet and filter the Recommendation column.

   Remove

   They come off the label, so Gmail no longer adds them when you type it in the To field. The contacts stay in Google Contacts.

   Taking them off the label is enough to keep them out of your next group email or mail merge, and it leaves the rest of each contact, such as a phone number, in Google Contacts.

   1. In Google Contacts, at the left, click the label you email.
   2. Check the box next to each contact to remove.
   3. At the top right, click Manage labels.
   4. Uncheck the label, then click Apply.

   Review

   They deserve a look before your next send. To find them in Google Contacts, put them on a label of their own: next to Labels, click Create label, name it and click Save, then check their boxes, click Manage labels, click the new label and click Apply.

   Send

   They stay on your label: nothing to do.

   Note

   The label is what Gmail puts in the To field when you type its name, for a group email as for a mail merge: once the contacts are off it, your next send leaves them out.

   SourceGmail's official help center

   • View, group & share contacts (opens in a new tab)support.google.com
   • Send personalized emails with mail merge (opens in a new tab)support.google.com

Frequently asked questions