How to find someone's email address
You need to reach someone. You know their name. You know their company. But you don't have their email address — and the company website doesn't list it, their LinkedIn profile hides it, and guessing hasn't worked.
This happens constantly in sales, recruiting, journalism, business development, and everyday professional life. Here are 10 methods that actually work, ranked from easiest to most advanced.
1. Check their company website
Start simple. Many companies list team emails on their "About," "Team," or "Contact" pages. Smaller companies are more likely to publish individual emails. Larger companies usually provide a general contact form, but you can still learn the email format — if the general address is info@company.com and you see one person listed as jane.doe@company.com, you've cracked the pattern.2. Check their LinkedIn profile
If you're connected with someone on LinkedIn, their email may be visible in their Contact Info section (click the "Contact info" link below their profile headline). Many professionals list a public email there. If you're not connected, sending a connection request with a note explaining why you want to connect is often the fastest path.3. Google it (seriously)
Try searching: "[Name]" "[Company]" email or "[Name]" "@company.com". People's email addresses end up on conference speaker lists, press releases, government filings, published papers, old forum posts, and event registrations. Google indexes all of it. You'd be surprised how often a direct search finds what you need in under 30 seconds.Also try searching with site:twitter.com "[Name]" email or site:github.com "[Name]" — developers and public figures often have emails visible on these platforms.
4. Guess the format
Most companies use a standard email format. The most common patterns are:firstname@company.com (e.g., jane@acme.com)
firstname.lastname@company.com (e.g., jane.doe@acme.com)
firstinitiallastname@company.com (e.g., jdoe@acme.com)
firstname_lastname@company.com (e.g., jane_doe@acme.com)
If you know one person's email at the company, the format usually applies to everyone. Try the most likely pattern and use one of the verification methods below to confirm it's valid before sending.
5. Use an email finder tool
Several tools specialize in finding professional email addresses:Hunter.io — Enter a domain and see all associated email addresses, plus the company's email format. 25 free searches per month.
Snov.io — Email finder with built-in verification. Good for sales prospecting and bulk lookups.
RocketReach — Searches across multiple databases to find professional emails, phone numbers, and social profiles.
Clearbit Connect — Free Chrome extension that finds email addresses directly within Gmail.
These tools aren't perfect — they rely on databases that may be outdated — but they find valid addresses 60-80% of the time for professionals at companies with more than a few employees.
6. Use Twitter/X
Many professionals, especially in tech, media, and startups, have their email visible in their Twitter/X bio or pinned tweet. Others are responsive to DMs — a quick "I'd love to email you about [topic], what's the best address?" often works when the request is genuine and specific.7. Check WHOIS records
If the person owns a domain (common for freelancers, consultants, and entrepreneurs), their email might be in the WHOIS registration record. Search at whois.domaintools.com or who.is. Privacy protection has made this less reliable, but older registrations or smaller registrars sometimes still expose contact information.8. Look at their published content
If the person writes articles, blog posts, publishes papers, or speaks at conferences, their email is often listed in an author bio, paper header, or speaker profile. Conference websites from past events are particularly useful — they frequently list speaker contact details.9. Ask for an introduction
The most effective method is also the most underused. Check if you have a mutual connection on LinkedIn, and ask that connection for an introduction. An introduced email gets a 5-10x higher response rate than a cold outreach — because it arrives with implicit trust.10. Verify before you send
Before emailing an address you've guessed or found through a tool, verify it's valid. Sending to invalid addresses hurts your email reputation and can get your domain flagged for spam.Free verification tools: Hunter.io Email Verifier, NeverBounce, and ZeroBounce all let you check whether an address is deliverable. They'll tell you if the mailbox exists, if it's a catch-all domain, or if it's known to bounce.
Once you find the address: make the email count
Finding someone's email is the easy part. Getting them to read and respond is the hard part. A few principles:Personalize the first line. Reference something specific about them — a recent article, a talk, a mutual connection, a company announcement. Generic openings ("I came across your profile...") get deleted.
Be concise. The person didn't ask for your email. Respect their time. Get to the point in 3-5 sentences.
Make the ask specific. "Would love to chat sometime" is vague and easy to ignore. "Would you have 15 minutes this Thursday to discuss [specific topic]?" is actionable and easy to say yes to.
And once they respond, the real work begins: managing that conversation alongside everything else in your inbox. This is where most email falls apart — important threads get buried under newsletters and notifications, follow-ups get forgotten, and opportunities slip through the cracks. Faraday automatically surfaces the emails that matter, so when that crucial response arrives, you see it immediately — not three days later under a pile of spam.