Free Email List Cleaner
Clean the list for real
Upload a CSV and Clu checks every mailbox with SMTP and catch-all detection, at half a credit per email.
Working a whole list? Upload the CSV to Clu. Get 14 days of Pro, free: 250 credits, 3 seats, agents, Sequences and Clu in Slack.
Start free trialEmail list cleaning removes duplicates, invalid syntax, role-based addresses, typo domains like gmial.com and disposable inboxes before you send. Do it yourself in a spreadsheet, then let Clu check the mailboxes at half a credit per email.
Do the whole list in Clu
For a whole list, Clu finds and verifies the contact data across 25+ providers.
The Free plan is $0 with 50 credits a month and 5 searches. Every new workspace can also try Pro free for 14 days.
- Search
- Free
- Verified work email
- 1 credit
- Phone number
- 10 credits
98% verified work emails and 85% phone numbers on our 500-lead benchmark, across 25+ providers.
A demo of Clu, our agent, doing this for a whole list. Asked: Verify every email in Series B sales leaders before Monday's send. Clu runs the tools, asks for confirmation before spending credits (Validate 480 emails on Series B sales leaders, 240 credits), fills the list row by row and reports: 480 checked: 431 verified, 33 risky, 16 invalid. Want me to drop the invalid ones before Monday?
10,000+ users, from founders to full sales teams
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Email list cleaning, explained
Email list cleaning removes the addresses in a list that should not be sent to: duplicates, malformed addresses, role-based shared inboxes, disposable domains, and typos of common providers. It is a hygiene pass that reads each address. It does not confirm the mailbox exists, which is what verification does.
How do I clean an email list?
Work through the list in a spreadsheet. Lowercase the column and remove exact duplicates, then catch alias duplicates such as Gmail dots and plus tags. Filter out addresses that fail syntax, such as a missing @. Separate role-based inboxes like info@ and support@, mark free consumer domains, correct typo domains such as gmial.com or hotmial.com, and remove known disposable inboxes.
Keep a second tab of every removal and the reason for it. Then verify what survives.
What is the difference between list cleaning and email verification?
Cleaning reads the address. Verification asks the mail server about it. A cleaner catches duplicates, bad syntax, role accounts, disposable domains, and misspelled providers without any network call, which is why it can run instantly and privately. Verification checks syntax, DNS, and MX records and probes whether the mailbox itself accepts mail, which is the only way to predict a bounce.
Most teams clean first to cut the volume, then verify what survives.
Should I remove role-based email addresses?
Usually yes for cold outbound, and usually no for existing customers. A role-based address such as info@, sales@, or support@ is a shared mailbox with no named person behind it, so personalized outreach does not land and some providers treat inbound cold mail to them more harshly. If the address belongs to an account you already work with, it is often the right contact.
Separate them rather than deleting them so you can decide per list.
Why does a clean list still bounce?
Because hygiene checks cannot see inside the receiving mail server. An address can be correctly formatted, on a real company domain, and free of every hygiene flag, and still bounce because the person left, the mailbox was deleted, or the domain uses a catch-all that accepts everything then discards it.
Verification is the step that catches those. Clu runs an SMTP mailbox check with catch-all detection for exactly this reason, at half a credit per email.
The toolEmail List CleanerRunsInside CluFree quotaAccount required
How does this tool work?
An email list cleaner takes a raw list and separates the addresses worth sending to from the ones that will hurt you. A cleaning pass looks for duplicates (case-insensitive, and aware of Gmail dot and plus-alias tricks that make one mailbox look like five), addresses that fail basic syntax, role-based shared inboxes like info@ or sales@, free consumer domains rather than a company domain, typos of a common provider, and known disposable inboxes.
You can do most of this in a spreadsheet: lowercase the column, remove duplicates, then filter for the rest. Keep a second tab of everything you remove with the reason, so the decision stays yours. The limit worth knowing: hygiene checks read the address, they do not ask the receiving mail server whether the mailbox exists.
A perfectly formatted address on a real company domain can still bounce. For that you need verification, which is what the email verifier does one address at a time, free for 2 checks per IP every 30 days, and what Clu does on an uploaded CSV with an SMTP mailbox check and catch-all detection, at half a credit per email.
What an email list cleaner checks
Duplicates: exact matches plus Gmail dot and plus-alias variants that resolve to one mailbox. Syntax: addresses that cannot be valid, such as a missing @, a bare domain, or illegal characters. Role-based: shared inboxes like info@, sales@, support@, admin@, and hello@. Free domains: gmail, yahoo, outlook, hotmail, and icloud addresses, which are valid but rarely the work contact in B2B.
Typo domains: near-misses of common providers, with the likely correction shown. Disposable: known temporary-inbox domains that will not exist next week.
Why email list hygiene protects your sender reputation
Mailbox providers judge you on how recipients react. Bounces, spam complaints, and mail to long-dead addresses all push your domain toward the spam folder, and the damage carries across every campaign from that domain, not just the one that caused it. Cleaning before you send removes the cheapest sources of that damage: duplicates that make one person receive the same mail twice, typo domains that bounce every time, and disposable inboxes that no longer accept mail.
Who uses the Email List Cleaner?
The people who run it most, and what each one runs it for.
- Sales teamsCatch a dead address before a rep spends time writing to it.
- MarketersClean a list before the campaign goes out, so bounces don't hit the sending domain.
- RecruitersConfirm a candidate's contact details are real before you reach out.
- FoundersCheck an address before you email an investor, partner or buyer.
- RevOpsKeep CRM records accurate so routing, scoring and reports hold up.
- AgenciesCheck client data before it goes into a live campaign.
What does Clu do with a whole list?
Watch a real search go from query to an enriched, validated, CRM-ready list: 36 leads, 100% contact fill, synced to HubSpot.
36 ICP leads, 100% contact fill, validated and pushed to HubSpot in one flow
Describe the job once. An agent runs it every week.
Clu turns one sentence into an agent. It searches 1B+ profiles, finds verified emails and phone numbers across 25+ providers, adds the people to your sequence and posts each run to Slack.
Weekly ICP outbound
Built by Clu from: “Every week, find 500 new people who match my ICP, get their emails and phones, and add them to Series B outbound.”
- Searched 1B+ profiles for new ICP matches500 foundPeople Search
- Ran the waterfall across 25+ providers487 emails · 412 phonesWaterfall
- Verified every email and phoneSMTP + catch-allVerification
- Added them to Series B outbound500 peopleSequences
- Posted the run to #pipelineSlackAgents
Friday 4:52 PM15 replies · 5 calls booked
Everything in the 14-day Pro trial
- Clu and agentsDescribe the job in one sentence. Clu builds the agent, runs it on a schedule or a CRM trigger and posts every run to Slack.
- People and Company SearchFind your buyers in 1B+ profiles from one sentence. Searching costs 0 credits.
- Waterfall enrichmentAsk 25+ providers in order and stop at the first verified email or phone number. 98% verified work emails and 85% phone numbers on a 500-lead benchmark.
- Email verificationRun SMTP and catch-all checks on every address before it reaches a sequence, at half a credit an email.
- ICP scoringScore every lead 0 to 100 against your ICP, with the reasons written down. The Research and Qualification skills do the digging.
- SequencesSend email from your reps' own inboxes, with call tasks. A reply stops the sequence. Sending costs 0 credits.
- CRM syncTwo-way sync with HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive. Push finished lists to Outreach, Salesloft and Lemlist.
- Chrome extensionGet a verified email and phone number in one click on LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, Salesforce and HubSpot.
- MCP and APIRun the same search and waterfall from Claude or ChatGPT with 36 MCP tools, or from your own code with the REST API.
14 days of Pro, free: 250 credits, 3 seats, agents, Sequences and Clu in Slack. Then Free at 50 credits a month, or Starter at $49 and Pro at $89 a seat a month.
Which free email lookup tools work together?
Start from whatever you have (a name, a domain, an email or a block of text) and chain the tools until you have a verified contact.
- Email Verifieremailmailbox statusCheck whether a mailbox is real before you send, with SMTP and catch-all detection. 2 free checks per IP every 30 days.
- Email ExtractorURL or textevery email on itEnter a website URL or paste text and pull out every email address on it, deduped.
- MX LookupdomainMX recordsSee which mail provider a domain uses and read its MX priority order.
- Email Blacklist Checkerdomain, email or IPblocklist statusCheck whether a domain or IP sits on a major sending blacklist.
- Reverse Email Lookupemailperson, company, locationStart with an email address and get the name, company and job title behind it. 2 free lookups per IP every 30 days.
Frequently asked questions
Short answers about the Email List Cleaner: what it checks, what it costs and where it stops.
All free toolsCan I clean a list on this page?
No. This page covers the method, and a spreadsheet handles most of it. What an account gets you is the part a spreadsheet can't do: upload a CSV to Clu and it checks each mailbox with an SMTP check and catch-all detection, at half a credit per email. Every new workspace starts with 14 days of Pro (up to 3 seats, 250 credits).
Do I have to upload my list to clean it?
No. Hygiene checks only read the address, so you can run them in a spreadsheet on your own machine. Verification is different, because an SMTP check is a network operation against the receiving mail server, so the list has to go to a verification service.
Does list cleaning check whether the addresses actually work?
No, and that distinction matters. Cleaning is a hygiene pass that reads each address. It never contacts the receiving mail server. To find out whether a mailbox will accept mail, run the survivors through the email verifier, or use Clu to check a whole list at half a credit per email.
How do I clean a large list?
A spreadsheet starts to struggle on very large files, so split the file into chunks first. For lists you also want verified and enriched with names, titles, and phone numbers, upload a CSV to Clu. Every new workspace starts with 14 days of Pro (up to 3 seats, 250 credits).
Now run it on the whole list.
Upload the CSV or describe the list you want. Clu finds, verifies and qualifies every row.
14 days of Pro, free.