Verify your Mailtrap contacts before you send

1. 1
   In Mailtrap

   Export your contacts from Mailtrap

   1. In the Marketing section, go to Contacts then All contacts.
   2. Tick the contacts to export, or click Select All.
   3. Click More Actions then Export.
   4. Click Confirm Export.
   5. Open the email Mailtrap sends you and click Download Contacts Export: the link expires after a day.

   Tip

   To verify part of your contacts only, such as one list or the subscribed contacts, add a filter on Lists or Subscription Status and click Search before selecting them. The file holds every contact field and list membership; PricklyMails only needs the addresses, so keep the email column alone in a spreadsheet before moving on.

   Note

   Select All selects the contacts on the current page. To export a whole list, or every subscribed contact, in one file, Mailtrap's API has a contact export that filters by list and by subscription status.

   SourceMailtrap's official help center

   • Contacts Management: Overview (opens in a new tab)docs.mailtrap.io
   • Email Marketing FAQs (opens in a new tab)docs.mailtrap.io
   • Create Contact Export (opens in a new tab)docs.mailtrap.io
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 Mailtrap: 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 Mailtrap 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 Mailtrap

   Bring the result back into Mailtrap

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

   Remove

   They go on the suppression list, and Mailtrap sends them no more campaigns.

   Mailtrap adds an address to that list itself once it hard bounces; importing yours first spares your campaigns those bounces.

   1. Open Suppressions, in the menu on the left.
   2. Click Import Suppressions, at the top right of the screen.
   3. Select Upload CSV.
   4. Save the addresses to remove in a CSV file based on the CSV template Mailtrap offers on that screen.
   5. Under Add to stream, choose Promotional (Bulk stream and Campaigns).
   6. Choose the domain your campaigns are sent from.
   7. Click Browse files, or drag and drop the file into the upload area.
   8. Click Add To Suppressions.

   Review

   They deserve a look before your next campaign. To find them in Mailtrap, create a list for them with Create List under Contacts then Lists, then find each one with the search bar in All contacts, tick it, and add it to the list with Add To Lists.

   Send

   They stay in your contacts: nothing to do.

   Warning

   A suppression covers the stream and the domain you chose. On the promotional stream, the address still gets your transactional emails, while Any stream stops both. An address suppressed for one domain can still be emailed from your other verified domains.

   Tip

   Only a few addresses? Select Insert manually instead of Upload CSV, choose the stream and the domain, paste the addresses, one per line and up to 1,000 per domain, then click Add To Suppressions.

   SourceMailtrap's official help center

   • Suppressions List (opens in a new tab)docs.mailtrap.io
   • Bulk Stream (opens in a new tab)docs.mailtrap.io
   • Statuses and Events (opens in a new tab)docs.mailtrap.io
   • Lists (opens in a new tab)docs.mailtrap.io
   • Contacts Management: Overview (opens in a new tab)docs.mailtrap.io

Verify each address before it reaches Mailtrap

Does your signup form or backend add contacts to Mailtrap through its API, with the Create a new Contact (opens in a new tab) call? Ask PricklyMails first. If the recommendation is remove, don't create the contact.

curl -s https://api.pricklymails.com/api/verify \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer pm_live_9f3a..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "email": "ana.silva@gmail.con" }' \
  | jq '{job_uuid, suggestion}'

{
  "job_uuid": "8f1c2a9e-4b7d-4e2a-9c61-3d5f0b7a2e18",
  "suggestion": "ana.silva@gmail.com"
}

curl -s https://api.pricklymails.com/api/verify/$JOB_UUID \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer pm_live_9f3a..." \
  | jq '.verifications[0] | {status, reason, score, recommendation}'

{
  "status": "invalid",
  "reason": "no_mx_records",
  "score": 0,
  "recommendation": "remove"
}

Frequently asked questions