Tell me if this has happened to you. You receive an email from someone, and you cannot figure out the sender’s identity. They may be an old friend, a relative, a colleague, or just an acquaintance. The email doesn’t contain enough information to identify the sender, and it feels rude to ask them. This is a situation that most of us have experienced in our lives, at least once. Well, with reverse email lookup services, you can easily solve this problem. They can help you dig information about the sender using just their email. So, if you want to save yourself from such embarrassing situations, read to find out how to find an email sender’s identity and location using reverse email lookup in 2021.

A reverse email lookup tool is a service that helps you search for a person’s details using only their email address. There are several tools and methods that you can use to figure out a sender’s identity using their email. We will list them down starting with the free resources and then move on to the paid ones.

  • Do a Simple Google Search
  • Reverse Email Search on Facebook and Other Social Media Websites
  • Using Email Clients that Automatically Extract Sender Information
  • Using Browser Extensions
  • Use Reverse Email Search Engines
  • Frequently Asked Questions

Google Search has become a powerhouse of a search engine, complete with an ever growing list of Google tips and tricks, and there is almost nothing that it cannot find. If you want to find the user behind an email address, the first thing you should do is search for it on Google. Google will extract and reveal any information that it can find on that account. Since most of the free email users use Gmail as their email service provider, Google can provide you with their information.

It can track any social media accounts linked to that email, find out their LinkedIn profile, and more. It’s the easiest way to find out information about an email account. And if Google doesn’t work, you can try out some of the Google alternatives that might be able to the job done.

Seeing how people happily share their personal information on Facebook, it is the best place to find information on people. Facebook’s search box allows you to search for people using their email ID. Copy and paste the email ID in Facebook’s search window and hit the search button. If a sender is using the same email ID for their Facebook account, their name will appear in the search result.

Probably the best way to keep track of all the emails that you are receiving and the persons who are sending them is by using a dedicated email client that automatically extracts the sender’s information and displays it right beside the email. Since I am using a Mac, my favorite email client that does it is Polymail (free trial, $13/month/user). If Polymail doesn’t suit your taste, you can also take a look at our list of the best macOS email clients.

While Polymail is now available on Windows as well, you can check out MailBird (free trial, $19.5/year) on Windows as well.

Another way to do a reverse email search is by using browser extensions for Chrome or the browser that you’re using. There are many browser extensions that can help you find the sender’s information when you open the email in your browser.

The free version of Clearbit Connect offers 100 reverse email lookups every month, which should be plenty for most users. It even identifies the company that the sender works at, and you can see more of the company’s employees as well.

If the above four methods do not work and you still don’t want to ask the sender who they are, you have one last resort to find their identity. There are various reverse email search or reverse people search engines which allows you to find out the information about someone by just using their email address. However, one drawback with using reverse email search engine is that generally they are paid.

Q. How Does Reverse Email Lookup Work?

There are many ways to trace back an email address. When we do a Google search or Facebook search, they use the data that users themselves have provided to provide you the information. Facebook allows you to disable finding your account using your email address. But you have to manually enable it. If you haven’t enabled this feature, anyone can use the email to find your profile.

Yes and no. If you use free tools like Facebook and Google, you don’t have to pay any money. Other reverse email look-up providers give you some data for free and charge for the full results. Some restrict you by the number of searches you can make in a month. If you only need to trace emails once in a while, the free versions will serve you well.

Q. Are there any international reverse email lookup services?

While most services focus more on the US market. They do work for people living in other countries. The results depend more on how actively that email address is being used than on the country of origin.

Yes, all the methods mentioned in this article work with Gmail email addresses.

Yes, if you use all the methods mentioned in this article, you will be able to reverse lookup the email address.