Updated 8/31/2020 from
In some situations, a person can lose their contacts or their personal address book, resulting in losing all of their friends and family’s email addresses. You can also lose touch with someone because they changed their email address or are trying to find old friends to keep in touch with. Either way, finding someone’s email address is a difficult, if not impossible, task. Below are some of the different methods you can try to find someone’s email address.
Other friends, family, work colleagues
One of the best ways to get an email address is to reach out to other friends, family, and co-workers. Ask them if they know the data subject’s email address and if so, if they can provide it to you.
Registered email
If you have saved emails sent by the person, check those emails to see that person’s email address. Most email programs and online email services allow you to search through all of your emails.
Websites, forums, blogs and social media pages
Another good way to find someone’s email address is to look up their personal website, blog (online journal), or social media page.
For a list of all the popular and widely used social networking sites, see our social networking definition page. We recommend starting with Facebook.
For a list of popular and widely used blogging sites and online journals, see our blogging definition page.
Look up her name in real life
If you know the person’s full name, searching for that person may return their work email address, home page, or timeline, which includes their contact information. Unfortunately, finding people with ambiguous names can be more difficult. Below are a few different search queries that you can try on any popular search engine.
In the following example, we search for the name “Jane Doe” and replace it with another name. Keep in mind that if you don’t know the person’s full name, it’s very unlikely you’ll find an email address.
“Jane Doe”
If you search for the person’s name in quotes, you’ll get all results that include their full name. If the name is not unique, you may get too many results. In this case, try adding additional keywords as shown below.
“Jane Doe” Utah
“Jane Doe” high school, college or university in Utah
“Jane Doe” work from Utah
Adding a state, school, or work to your search eliminates bad results and helps find a match if one exists.
During your research, you may also receive other contact information, such as a phone number or address, which you can use to request their email address. In general, it’s easier to find someone’s mailing address or phone number than trying to find their email address.
For example, you can find the phone number and address of almost anyone listed on a local listing by typing it Jane Doe Utah in a google search.
note
Some people can change their name during their lifetime. For example, a woman can change her last name after marriage. A person can also move out of a state or country, which also frustrates the above search attempts.