# How email finders work — Ravn

Canonical: https://askravn.com/blog/how-email-finders-work

Guide

# How an email finder turns a name into an address.

An email finder takes a person's name and their company domain, works out which address pattern that company uses, builds the likely address, and then verifies it. The output is a best guess with a confidence score, not a looked-up fact.
By Ravn · 3 November 2026
[Start free: 1,000 lookups](https://askravn.com/#start) [Read the docs](https://askravn.com/docs)

Patterns
## What are email address patterns?
Most companies give staff addresses in one consistent format, set when the mail system was first configured. For a person called Jane Doe at `acme.com`, the common formats are:
- `first.last`: `jane.doe@acme.com`
- `flast`: `jdoe@acme.com`
- `firstlast`: `janedoe@acme.com`
- `first`: `jane@acme.com`
- `f.last`: `j.doe@acme.com`
- `first_last`: `jane_doe@acme.com`
- `firstl` or `lastf`: `janed@acme.com`, `doej@acme.com`Small companies often use first names only. Larger ones tend towards `first.last` or `flast` because first names collide quickly. Exceptions exist everywhere: two people with the same name, a founder who kept a short address, a company that changed format after a merger.
Learning
## How does a finder learn which pattern a company uses?
By looking at addresses the company has published itself. A team page, a press contact, a support address with a named person, a footer: each real address at the domain is evidence. If the site lists `maria.lopez@acme.com` and `tom.reed@acme.com`, the pattern is almost certainly `first.last`.Ravn's `search_business_email_by_name` learns the pattern from the company's own website. You give it a name (or `first_name` and `last_name`) and the company domain. It returns the address, the `pattern` it used, a verification `status`, a `risk_score` and a `confidence` between 0 and 1. The [email finder API](https://askravn.com/features/email-finder-api) page covers the inputs and outputs.Names need care. Accents, hyphenated surnames, middle names and nicknames all change the result. "Bob" may be `robert.smith`; "María José" may be written several ways. Passing clean first and last names separately gives a finder the best chance.
The process
## What happens between the name and the answer?

- / 01
### Normalise the name
Split it into first and last, strip titles like Dr, and handle accents and hyphens consistently.
- / 02
### Find the pattern
Read public addresses on the company domain to work out the format it uses.
- / 03
### Build candidates
Apply the learned pattern first. Without clear evidence, a finder may try the most common formats in order.
- / 04
### Verify
Run each candidate through the same checks a verifier uses: syntax, DNS, MX, then the mailbox check where it is possible.
- / 05
### Score it
Combine pattern evidence and verification into a confidence score, and flag the result if the domain is catch-all.
Confidence
## What does a confidence score actually tell you?
It tells you how much evidence backs the guess. A pattern seen several times on the company's site, plus a mail server that confirmed the mailbox, is strong. A common pattern applied with no evidence, on a server that would not answer, is weak.Catch-all domains are the hard case. The server accepts every address, so verification cannot separate `jane.doe@` from `jdoe@`. Ravn marks those results as risky, so you know the answer rests on pattern evidence alone. The [catch-all guide](https://askravn.com/blog/what-is-a-catch-all-email-domain) explains why.Use the confidence score with the status, not instead of it. A sensible rule: use high-confidence `valid` results directly, and treat risky or low-confidence results as leads to confirm another way.A confirmed mailbox also does not prove it belongs to the right person. If two people share a name at the same company, the pattern points to whichever one got the address first, and the other may have a number or a middle initial added. When it matters, check the person's title or department against another source before you write.
Try it
## How do you find one address, or a whole list?
One person from the CLI, or a CSV of names and company websites.
```
# One person
npx ravn search_business_email_by_name --name "Jane Doe" --company acme.com

# A CSV with Name and Website columns, mapped to the tool's inputs
npx ravn enrich leads.csv --tool search_business_email_by_name \
--map name=Name,company=Website --out leads-with-email.csv

# REST
curl https://api.askravn.com/v1/tools/search_business_email_by_name \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $RAVN_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"first_name": "Jane", "last_name": "Doe", "company": "acme.com"}'
```

Other routes
## When should you use something other than a pattern finder?
When you do not know the person's name yet. A pattern finder needs a name and a domain. If you only know the company and the role, start with [people search](https://askravn.com/features/people-search-api), which runs on your own People Data Labs key, then find or verify the email. If you have an email and want to know who it belongs to, [reverse email lookup](https://askravn.com/features/reverse-email-lookup) goes the other way.Finding an address does not give you permission to use it. The [compliance page](https://askravn.com/compliance) covers lawful basis and opt-outs, and the [compliance guide](https://askravn.com/blog/b2b-contact-data-compliance) explains the main laws in plain language. To try the finder without a key, use the [free email finder](https://askravn.com/tools/email-finder).
FAQ
## Common questions.
[All questions →](https://askravn.com/faq)Does an email finder look addresses up in a database?A pattern-based finder does not. It works out the company's address format from public addresses on its site, builds the likely address, and verifies it. Record-lookup tools that run on your own provider key are a separate approach.What is the most common business email pattern?Formats like first.last and flast are widespread, but it varies by company. That is why a good finder learns the pattern from each company's own published addresses rather than assuming one.Why did the finder return a risky result with a pattern?Usually because the domain is catch-all. The address follows the learned pattern, but the mail server accepts everything, so the mailbox itself cannot be confirmed.Does a miss cost anything on Ravn?No. When a tool returns not_found, the lookup is given back, so you only pay for answers.

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- [How email verification worksEmail verification checks syntax, DNS and MX records, then asks the mail server about the mailbox without sending.](https://askravn.com/blog/how-email-verification-works)
- [What is a catch-all email domain?A catch-all domain accepts mail for any address, real or not, so no verifier can prove a mailbox exists there.](https://askravn.com/blog/what-is-a-catch-all-email-domain)