Is that a Disposable email? Find out with this free API

Validator.pizza is a free API based web app that will let you know if an email is from a disposable email service or not.

Disposable email has become more and more popular over the years, and the logic behind it is so you can help prevent spam by having a different email address with every service you use. If some company sells your email or you start receiving spam, you can just remove that address, and you’ve never exposed your real email.

One problem with this is that spammers and bots have started using these and I’ve been seeing them used a lot more often on contact forms, trial signups, etc. Most of the time it’s not a huge deal, but in examples like setting up a trial that can cost the company money and it’s a huge red flag seeing a disposable email used.

Before this app, there hasn’t been a great way of finding out if an email is disposable. There are thousands of unique domains and this API checks against 3,144 domains. It also validates emails through an advanced Regex and can check the MX records for a given domain.

Here is a basic API call showing how it works:

GET https://www.validator.pizza/email/[email protected]

Then, successful results:

{
    "status": 200,
    "email": "[email protected]",
    "domain": "example.com",
    "mx": false,
    "disposable": false,
    "alias": false,
    "did_you_mean": false,
    "remaining_requests": 119
}

The service is currently free with a limit of 120 requests per hour, and it has a WordPress plugin available for stopping those emails from comments and registration.

A downside to this app is the documentation doesn’t inform you if the email addresses or domains are stored on their server. I’m assuming they are so they can improve the service over time, but it’s not outlined.

If you’d like to find out more about this API, the official site has the documentation, a few samples, and a link to the WordPress plugin.