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Verify your Outlook contacts before you email them

Integration Mailboxes

Outlook email verification in three steps: export your contacts to a CSV file, verify it in PricklyMails, then delete the contacts that cannot receive mail.

There is no native Outlook connector: you export the list, PricklyMails verifies it, and you bring the result back into Outlook.

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Step by step

Clean your list in three steps

  1. In Outlook

    Export your Outlook contacts to a CSV file

    1. In new Outlook for Windows, Outlook on the web or Outlook.com, select People on the side panel.
    2. On the ribbon, select Export contacts, or Manage contacts then Export contacts in Outlook on the web and Outlook.com.
    3. In the dropdown, select All contacts, or the folder that holds the contacts you email.
    4. Select Export: the .csv file lands in your Downloads folder.

    Tip

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

    Tip

    In classic Outlook, the export is a wizard: select File then Open & Export then Import/Export, then Export to a file, Comma Separated Values and the Contacts folder under your account, choose where to save the file, and select Finish.

    SourceOutlook's official help center
  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 Outlook: 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 Outlook 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. In Outlook

    Bring the result back into your Outlook contacts

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

    Remove

    Their contacts are deleted from People and wait in its Deleted folder, where you can restore one if you need it.

    Outlook deletes contacts from the People page, where you can select several at once before deleting them.

    1. On the side panel, select People.
    2. Select the contacts to remove.
    3. On the ribbon, select Delete.
    4. Select Delete again to confirm.
    Review

    They deserve a look before your next send. To find them in People, gather them on a contact list of their own: select one of their contacts, select Add to list on the ribbon, then New contact list, and add the others to that list the same way.

    Send

    They stay in your contacts: nothing to do.

    Note

    In classic Outlook, right-click a contact in People and select Delete: it goes to your Deleted Items folder, like a deleted email.

    SourceOutlook's official help center

Frequently asked questions

I email a contact list: is deleting the contacts enough?

Check the list too. Outlook's help describes a contact list as a collection of email addresses, to which you add names or email addresses by typing them, so a remove address can sit on a list you write to. To take it off, open the list in People, select Edit, select the x next to the address, then select Save. Deleting a contact list, by contrast, deletes only the list, not its contacts.

SourceOutlook's official help center

Should I block the addresses to remove instead of deleting their contacts?

Blocking works on the mail you receive: Outlook's help says that when you add an address or a domain to your blocked senders list, Outlook moves messages from that sender to your Junk Email folder. The addresses you write to come from your contacts and contact lists, so the procedure above is the one that keeps the remove addresses out of your next email.

SourceOutlook's official help center

Will Outlook still suggest an address once its contact is deleted?

Not as a contact: Outlook's help says a saved personal contact keeps being suggested in the To, Cc and Bcc fields unless it is deleted. Its suggestions also draw on the names and addresses you used in messages you sent, and on your organization's directory, whose contacts only its administrator can remove. So a remove address you emailed before may still come up as you type: check the recipients before you send.

SourceOutlook's official help center

Does PricklyMails connect to Outlook directly?

No, there is no native connector: you go through a file export, as above.

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