If you want to find someone’s social media accounts using their email, you may have tried some options. Some tools work, and others have nothing to do with your search for hidden accounts on social networks. For that reason, I tested the best ways, services, and tools to search for specific profiles linked to an email address easily in 2024.
Before starting your search for any online account on social media, make sure you have the correct email of the person you are looking for. If they’re your friends, ensure that their contact information is up-to-date. Also, collect as much information as possible about their phone numbers, usernames, and so on. These details can help you later if you find no profiles associated with that email.
How to search social networks by email
The following methods that I tested worked in most cases. So, start with the one that you prefer, type the email, and see if there is any social account behind it. However, it would be better if you verify first that, indeed, that’s a valid email and not a fake one. Lots of scammers and even social media users have temporary emails just for account activation. So, if you see a weird ID on these contact details, try to check them with the following technique.
Reverse email lookups for social media
Finding social media accounts by email address is not that complicated these days. Some search options, like these tools, work well. So, what you can do is copy and paste the email in the search box, validate it, and wait for the search to be done. After that, there should be some sort of search report. That may include the details behind that email, such as the possible accounts on social media, contact numbers, and more details.
Remember that sometimes, you may need to think about the email ID only in order to discover the associated social media profiles. Most people use the same username on their Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok, for example. Not only that, but when we look closely at their details, we’ll find that their email ID is also the same username.
Of course, there could also be some variations of that ID, like a number or date of birth. The main point here is that you may get the hidden social accounts behind an email ID and not only the full address. But you need to use that Gmail ID as the possible username that person is using on social networks.
Social Catfish
If you try Social Catfish and their advanced email lookup technology, you’ll like it. It can help you learn more about anonymous email senders, know their real name, and address, and even see their photos. But the best thing about this online tool is its ability to focus mainly on social media searches based on a simple email address. Also, that doesn’t matter if you want to lookup a Gmail, Yahoo, Bing, and other email providers; the system works for all of them.
In addition to the details you expect from the email search, Social Catfish can help you trace the location of the person behind it. Moreover, the basic contact information that we all use can easily uncover the hidden identity of the person behind it with social profiles, address history, and more.
Additionally, in some cases, you may get the IP address behind an email, and that’s not easy to trace these days. So, give this search tool a try and see if it can provide you with the name and social profile of someone’s email.
This tool provides other search options, such as:
- Username
- Full name and country
- Phone number
- Photo Search
- Reverse address lookup
People Finders
With the PeopleFinders email lookup, you get a new way to search for someone’s social media presence with one link. Just type in their email and start the scan. After that, read through the report and see what comes up as usernames or profile URLs that you can visit and verify.
Unlike other useless tools, including SpyTox and others, this one provides up-to-date data. Also, you don’t have to waste time trying to figure out all the online profiles behind an email. But this is not a free service. So, it’s a subscription-based membership that shows data that’s not available with free tools.
This powerful email lookup database contains a large number of records. That includes possible names, cell numbers, social profiles, and even more. In addition, this complete background search service comes with a long list of features that you may not find on similar sites. However, the availability of data may not always be the same, depending on many factors.
That’s because there are different privacy settings that people turn on under their social media pages. Consequently, this tool may not show you 100% of the data that you expect, but it’s a good search option that saves time and effort.
Spokeo
This is one of the best resources for finding social media accounts by providing a simple email address. In fact, Spokeo is one of the most popular email lookup tools that you can use online. Its huge people search database contains billions of records and data in the US. In my tests, I found that Spokeo is one of the best tools available that can help find accounts on social media through a single email.
Is there any internal search system on social apps?
The profile search of some social media apps like Facebook works well when you type some keywords. But if you don’t want to waste time, try to type the email ID of your friend or that suspicious person in the Facebook search bar. Next, see if the platform suggests any users or posts containing that exact information. You may be surprised at how easy it’s to locate someone’s social media profile when you use their email ID only on Facebook.
Do the same with TikTok, Instagram, and even YouTube and Snapchat. The email ID could help you a lot in tracing people’s digital footprints like never before.
That being said, there are limitations to any social media platform’s search engine. It’s not like Google, which has a sophisticated algorithm, data centers, and code. Facebook, for example, claims that its search system works. But when you try it, it’s nothing more than a simple search extension that finds the exact words you type. Also, when users on social networks keep their posts and accounts private, the email won’t help you locate them. So, all the internal search tools on social media sites are limited.
Try LinkedIn
Without a doubt, LinkedIn is the professional social network for millions of people. So, when you expect to find someone there, search by their email. The LinkedIn search system can tell you whether the email you typed is associated with any account or not on the platform.
To do that, log into your existing account, then, type the email address in the LinkedIn search bar. I prefer using their desktop version over the mobile version, as it offers the best user experience. Next, filter your search by “people”, and then choose “all filters”. From there, you should be able to tweak the search results by excluding keywords or adding others. That includes the city, name, location, company, etc.
If you successfully found the profile on LinkedIn, click on that name, and then see the “contact info” tab. From there, the user adds their social media links. Thus, you can click on them and visit their profiles one by one. That way, you indirectly find the social profiles through a simple Gmail address.
Social media syncing
Most social apps, like TikTok and Instagram, offer this search feature. So, it works by asking you to import your list of contacts from your phone to the app. Then, their system scans the database of users saved on your device with emails or phone numbers.
So, if you already saved that email, then go ahead and try syncing your contacts list with the exact site you want to search for. Otherwise, save that email on your device, and search again with it. If the app finds an associated account, it will notify you with the user’s photos and username on that network.
Some of the best social media apps that you can use to find people by syncing your list of contacts are Snapchat, WhatsApp, and Instagram. Snapchat, for example, relies on the mobile number you save on your device. But also, the app uses the email address you saved on any contact name, and it searches using it.
Once Snapchat finds an account that is registered on the app through that email, it suggests it as a friend for you. That’s how it works, you have to be creative sometimes to find people on social media quickly.
Google search
Google can help you locate social media accounts by the email address behind them. Best of all, it’s free, and you can use it as many times as you want. That being said, Google, as a search engine, can only show you the data that’s available to the public.
This means that if you want to detect fraud because of a specific email sender, then, you should combine this search method with others in this guide. That way, you can get a clear overview of whether or not that person is using their real name on social media. Or if they’re using fake details and wrong information and photos.
When using Google, type the email address and add some search terms like “social media” or “accounts”. Next, read through the SSERP to see if there are any photos or names of social networks. Finally, visit these pages, and you’ll get the profile details.
What about Lullar?
A few years ago, Lullar was a great service that’s online, and anyone can use it to search for a specific email address. But now, the tool is just forwarding you to other social sites without any real value to what you are looking for. So, it’s not the same as years ago. Now, Lullar is not that tool you can try to find the social profile linked to someone’s email.
Also, I want to mention that so many apps and tools claim they’re the Lullar website when the truth is different. So, my best advice for you is, never use such sites or tools for this kind of people search. You can always use other methods to uncover anyone’s secret accounts on social media through email, and without the need for low-quality extensions.
Think about their other email on different providers
Who said that you should search for one single email? If that woman, or man is actively using the Internet, they might have hidden emails. So, my trick here is that you can add the name or the username of that person to different email address suffixes. Now, you may ask how you can find them all. Well, the following is the list of the most popular email service providers in the US and also in the world.
Now, just use one service, at a time, when you search for any possible user behind them. After that, you’ve found an active email account, start searching for that exact email, and use one of the search tools I talked about above.
- ProtonMail is a private email service provider from Europe. So, see if the person you are looking for already has an account with them. Their email ends with “@proton.me”.
- Yahoo email always ends with the “.com” extension or the regional extension of the country where that person lives. So, in general, it’s the “email-id@yahoo.com” or “@ymail.com”.
- Microsoft Outlook, their email looks like this: “@outlook.com”.
- AOL is another popular email provider in the US that ends with “@aol.com”.
- Apple Mail has millions of users, and its email address ends with “@icloud.com”.
- Zoho Mail is another private service that offers emails ending with “@zohomail.com”.
- GMX also has lots of customers with an email like these ones “@gmx.com”, or “@gmx.us”.
- Mail.com is a widely used service that offers different extensions such as “@mail.com”, “@mail.com”, “@email.com”, “@myself.com”, “@alumni.com”, and much more.
The list of these emails never ends. Because of that, users on social media could easily create fake accounts with them. That’s why, I recommend trying to add the username or name of the person you’re looking for, just in front of the email suffix or domain name.
Verify if their email address is active
The challenge with these options is that you can’t tell for sure if someone is really owning an active email there, without sending them a message. But, you can test if there is actually an active email with that ID or not by trying to create a new email with them.
When there’s an existing user, the website will show you an error message asking you to choose a new one, because someone else has already used that ID. That gives you a hint that the person has an email there. Hence, it’s not a tell-tell sign, especially if you search for general names and not specific ones.
Some online tools offer email verification, but that will come with premium subscriptions. So, if you don’t want to go through all that, use a free technique to do that. You can track the message you send by email and see whether the person has opened it or not.
That works well for Gmail and Outlook or MSN emails. Also, you can send a test email, and see if the server delivers your message to the receipt or not. In general, in a few hours, you can see the message delivery error when there is no active email there.
By doing that, you ensure the validity of the email you want to reverse-lookup and uncover the associated social media profiles.
The link between emails and social accounts
Nearly every social media network asks each user for their email when creating their accounts. So, that’s a mandatory contact detail to keep their accounts active on these platforms. But also, that’s a way to keep the app secure by letting users request password reset, for example, when they can’t login for any reason.
From that fact, you can notice that all these companies are saving the user’s email address on their servers with the linked details. So, every social app can check if a given email is linked to a specific account or not internally.
That’s not all; there are many occasions, in which, data leaks happen. These online threats sent millions of accounts data such as usernames, login emails, and other details. Even more, scammers are selling that data on the dark web. After that, imagine how that data can help investigators, private search engines, and databases. People can build powerful tools to search for users on the Internet based on their known emails only.
So, the main idea here is that we can’t separate social media from emails. Every account on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (or the newly renamed X platform) is associated with a unique email. Thus, there is always a way to find that link and tell whether or not someone is registered on such social platforms using their email.
You can lookup a person’s social media accounts using their email address only. That’s not as complicated as it looks like, but when you choose the right techniques.
Conclusion
As you can see from these search tips, tricks, and resources, you can find someone’s accounts on social networks by their email. That could take a few minutes of your time or more, depending on how the person you are looking for is using the web. So, be patient when you can’t see any hidden profile you expect on Facebook or other networks because you may have added the wrong email suffix or other errors.
