Free Email Permutator

What is an email permutator?

An email permutator takes a person's name and their company's domain, then generates every common email pattern that domain might use. You enter `Kevin Smith` and `acme.com`, you get back `kevin.smith@acme.com`, `ksmith@acme.com`, `kevin@acme.com`, and another 15-20 variations.

The output is a list of plausible addresses, not a single guaranteed-correct one. The next step is checking which of those plausible addresses actually exists, which is where an email verifier comes in.

How to find anyone's work email in 3 steps

Sales teams, recruiters, and journalists hit this problem all day. Someone shared a great talk, their name is in the program, the company is on LinkedIn — but the email isn't published anywhere. Here's the practical workflow that works most of the time.

Step 1: Get the domain right

The domain is the company's main email domain, not necessarily their main website. Big companies sometimes split — `microsoft.com` for corporate, `outlook.com` for consumer, `xbox.com` for support. Smaller companies often use their `.com` for both. When in doubt, look at any public email from someone at the company (press contacts, support@, founders' Twitter bios) and copy the domain from there.

Step 2: Run the permutator

Enter the first name, last name, and domain. Our tool generates every pattern that domain would actually accept. If the domain is `gmail.com`, we skip patterns with dashes (Gmail doesn't allow them). If it's a custom corporate domain, we show all plausible variations because we have no way to know which one they use.

If you know the person's middle name or nickname, fill those in too — `Robert "Bob" Smith` gives you `bob.smith@` and `bsmith@` alongside `robert.smith@`. Both forms are real, both are worth trying.

Step 3: Verify the top candidates

Don't send to all 20 candidates — that's spamming. Take the top 3-5 by likelihood (our table ranks them), then run each through our free email verifier. The verifier tells you which mailboxes actually exist by talking directly to the recipient's mail server. The one that comes back `Safe` is your answer.

The 10 most common business email patterns

Research across 250,000 verified business emails (Hunter.io 2024 + Adapt.io 2023) shows the patterns below dominate. If you only have time to try a handful, start at the top:

Note that these are percentages across all companies — a given company picks ONE format. Your job with the permutator is to try the most likely patterns first and confirm which one this specific company uses.

Why some patterns fail

Three things commonly make a guessed email bounce, even when the pattern would normally work:

Provider-specific character rules

Gmail only allows letters, numbers, and dots in the local part. So `kevin-smith@gmail.com` is invalid — that pattern won't deliver, even if Kevin Smith is a real person. Our tool knows this and skips invalid patterns for known providers. For unknown corporate domains, we show all plausible patterns and let the verifier filter.

Gmail's dot rule

Gmail treats dots as cosmetic. `kevin.smith@gmail.com`, `kevinsmith@gmail.com`, and `kev.in.smith@gmail.com` all deliver to the same mailbox. Our tool dedups these so you don't waste time trying "different" patterns that hit the same inbox. ProtonMail and Proton.me behave the same way.

The mailbox doesn't exist

Sometimes the pattern is right but the person uses a different first name internally (Robert vs. Bob), or they go by a middle name, or they're a contractor on a separate domain. The permutator generates plausible patterns — the verifier confirms which one is real.

How to verify which permutation is real

Trying every guessed email by sending a message is a bad idea. You burn your sender reputation, you clutter inboxes, you might trigger spam filters that flag your domain. The right approach: verify without sending.

An email verifier opens an SMTP connection to the recipient's mail server and asks (essentially) "does this mailbox exist?" without actually delivering anything. The mail server responds yes/no. You learn which permutation is real before any email leaves your account.

Our free email verifier gives you 3 verifications per day with no signup. For higher-volume work, the 200 free credits on signup cover most permutator follow-ups.

Email permutator vs email finder

Both tools target the same problem ("what's this person's email?") but solve it differently. Knowing which to reach for saves time.

An email permutator generates plausible patterns and hands you a list to verify. It works for anyone — no database lookup, no API key. Free, instant, unlimited.

An email finder queries a third-party database (Hunter, Apollo, Snov, RocketReach) that's already scraped or sourced the person's email. When it has the record, you get a direct answer. When it doesn't (which is most cases for niche industries, smaller companies, or recent hires), you're back to permutating.

Practical rule: try the permutator + verifier first. It's free and fast. Fall back to a paid email finder only when you've exhausted plausible patterns or you're chasing someone whose company has a non-obvious format.

Is guessing emails legal?

Generating a permutation is just doing math on a name — completely legal everywhere. Sending unsolicited email to the resulting addresses is where regulation kicks in.

In the US, CAN-SPAM allows unsolicited B2B outreach if you include a clear sender identity, a real physical address, and a working unsubscribe link. In the EU and UK, GDPR + PECR require either explicit opt-in or a "legitimate interest" justification that holds up under scrutiny. Canada's CASL is the strictest — you generally need express consent before the first message.

What's universally OK: looking up a publicly-listed business contact (CEO, head of sales, press), generating their email, verifying it exists, and sending one personalized, opt-out-respecting message. What's not OK anywhere: bulk-blasting unverified generated addresses with generic copy.