How to Handle Email Verification Results

OrbiSearch returns a status and substatus for every verified address, along with additional flags that give you more detail about the nature of the mailbox. Knowing how to act on these values is the difference between a clean, high-performing list and one that damages your sender reputation. This guide walks you through the decision-making process for the most common workflows.

Understanding status and substatus

Every result has two primary fields:

status — the top-level deliverability verdict. Use this for your primary decision.
substatus — the specific reason behind the status. Use this for finer-grained filtering or to log more detail about why an address was flagged.

{
  "email": "[email protected]",
  "status": "safe",
  "substatus": "deliverable",
  "explanation": "The mailbox exists and is accepting mail.",
  "email_provider": "Google Workspace",
  "mx_record": "aspmx.l.google.com",
  "is_domain_catch_all": false,
  "is_secure_email_gateway": false,
  "is_disposable": false,
  "is_role_account": false,
  "is_free": false
}

The explanation field contains a plain-English description of the result — useful for logging, debugging, or displaying context in an internal tool.

Status values

Status	What it means
`safe`	The mailbox exists and is accepting mail.
`risky`	Deliverability is uncertain — the address may or may not accept mail.
`invalid`	The address will bounce. It should not be sent to.
`unknown`	A transient error prevented verification. The result may change if you retry.

Substatus values

Substatus	Status	Description
`deliverable`	`safe`	Mailbox confirmed as accepting mail.
`catch_all`	`risky`	The domain accepts mail for any address; individual mailbox cannot be confirmed.
`policy_blocked`	`risky`	The mail server refused to verify the address due to a policy restriction.
`mailbox_not_found`	`invalid`	The mailbox does not exist on the domain.
`invalid_syntax`	`invalid`	The address is not a valid email format.
`no_mx_records`	`invalid`	The domain has no mail server configured.
`mailbox_disabled`	`invalid`	The mailbox exists but has been disabled.
`mailbox_full`	`invalid`	The mailbox exists but is full and cannot accept new mail.
`greylisted`	`unknown`	The mail server temporarily deferred the verification attempt.
`timeout`	`unknown`	Verification timed out before the mail server responded.
`smtp_unreachable`	`unknown`	Could not open a connection to the mail server.
`verification_blocked`	`unknown`	The mail server actively blocked the verification request.
`ip_blocked`	`unknown`	The verification request was blocked at the IP level.
`technical_issue`	`unknown`	An internal issue prevented verification.

Recommended actions by status

safe
risky
invalid
unknown

The address is deliverable. Include it in your outreach or workflow without restriction.Action: Proceed normally.Exception: A safe address with is_role_account: true (e.g., [email protected]) may technically be deliverable but receive low engagement. Consider filtering role accounts for cold outreach.

The deliverability of this address is uncertain. Whether to include it depends on your risk tolerance and use case.Action: Review based on your workflow. See use-case guidance below.Common risky substatuses:

catch_all — the domain accepts everything; you won’t know if the specific mailbox exists until you send.
policy_blocked — the server refused to answer; the address may be valid.
role_account — a generic shared inbox such as info@ or support@; may be deliverable but typically low engagement.

The address will bounce. Sending to it harms your sender reputation.Action: Remove from your list immediately. Do not send to invalid addresses under any circumstances.If you encounter a high volume of invalid_syntax results, investigate how the addresses were collected — it may indicate a data quality issue at the source.

OrbiSearch could not complete the verification due to a transient condition. The address may be valid or invalid.Action: Retry after 24 hours. Most unknown results resolve on a subsequent attempt. If an address consistently returns unknown across multiple retries, treat it as risky.Do not discard unknown addresses without retrying — you may be discarding valid contacts.

Use-case guidance

Different workflows call for different thresholds. Use the tabs below to find guidance for your situation.

Cold outreach
Data enrichment / analytics
Point-of-entry validation

Cold email campaigns are sensitive to bounce rates and spam complaints. A high bounce rate damages your sending domain’s reputation and can get your account suspended by your email service provider.Recommended approach: Only send to safe addresses.

Include: safe
Exclude: risky, invalid, unknown

If your list is large and you want to maximize reach, you may choose to include risky addresses with a catch_all substatus — these are common on corporate domains and often deliverable. Monitor bounce rates closely if you do this.

Never send to invalid addresses. A single campaign to a list with high invalid counts can permanently damage your sender reputation.

Additional filters for cold outreach:

Exclude is_role_account: true — role accounts rarely engage with cold email and often route to a shared inbox or spam filter.
Consider excluding is_free: true if you’re targeting businesses — free addresses may indicate personal rather than professional contacts.

If you’re building a dataset, running analytics, or enriching CRM records rather than sending email, you can afford a more permissive threshold.Recommended approach: Retain safe and risky; remove invalid; decide on unknown based on data completeness needs.

Retain: safe, risky
Remove or flag: invalid
Flag for review: unknown

For analytics, retaining risky addresses gives you a more complete picture of your dataset. You can always apply stricter filters later if you decide to run a sending campaign.Use substatus and the additional flags to add metadata to each record rather than simply including or excluding:

{
  "email": "[email protected]",
  "status": "risky",
  "substatus": "role_account",
  "is_role_account": true,
  "is_free": false
}

When validating an address as a user types it — on a signup form, checkout page, or lead capture form — your goal is to prevent obviously bad addresses from entering your system while avoiding false rejections that frustrate legitimate users.Recommended approach: Reject invalid and disposable addresses. Flag risky for review or a soft warning. Accept safe.

Accept: safe
Reject: invalid, and any address where is_disposable: true
Flag or soft-warn: risky (display a message like “We couldn’t fully verify this address — please double-check it”)
Accept but flag: unknown (do not block the user; retry verification in the background)

Use the timeout parameter to control how long the API waits for a response. For real-time validation, a timeout of 5–10 seconds keeps the user experience fast. You can always re-verify the address in the background with a longer timeout if the first attempt returns unknown.

For consumer-facing forms where disposable emails are a fraud or abuse vector, set is_disposable: true as a hard rejection criterion in addition to status: invalid.

Using the additional flags

Each result includes three boolean flags that give you more detail about the nature of the address. These are independent of status and can be used to apply additional filters on top of the primary deliverability verdict.

Flag	What it means	When to filter on it
`is_disposable`	The address uses a known temporary or disposable email service.	Reject on signup forms to prevent throwaway registrations. Exclude from outreach where quality matters.
`is_role_account`	The address is a functional account rather than a personal one (e.g., `support@`, `admin@`, `noreply@`).	Exclude from cold outreach where personalized engagement is the goal. Role accounts typically have low open rates.
`is_free`	The address uses a free consumer email provider (e.g., Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook.com).	Use as a signal for B2B vs. B2C segmentation. Not a quality issue on its own.

These flags may be null when OrbiSearch cannot determine the value with confidence — for example, when the domain is private or not well-known. Treat null the same as false unless you have a reason to be strict.

What to do with `unknown` results

unknown results are almost always temporary. They typically occur because:

The destination mail server was slow or temporarily unreachable (smtp_unreachable, timeout)
The server applied greylisting (greylisted) — a technique where the server temporarily rejects unknown senders and expects a retry
The verification was blocked at the network level (verification_blocked, ip_blocked)

What to do:

Wait 24 hours before retrying — transient issues often resolve within 24 hours.
Re-verify using GET /v1/verify or by resubmitting a bulk job containing only the unknown addresses.
If an address returns unknown consistently across multiple retries over 24+ hours, treat it as risky for outreach purposes.

OrbiSearch handles greylisting retries automatically in bulk jobs. If your job finishes with a partial_complete_retrying status, wait for it to transition to complete before retrieving results — the final pass may resolve some unknown entries.

What to do when a safe email bounces

A safe result means OrbiSearch confirmed the mailbox was accepting mail at the time of verification. However, mailboxes can be deleted or disabled after verification, or a sending issue may exist on your side. If you receive a bounce for an address that was marked safe:

Check the bounce type. A hard bounce (permanent failure) on a previously safe address may mean the mailbox was closed after verification. A soft bounce (temporary failure) may be unrelated to deliverability.
Re-verify the address. Run it through GET /v1/verify again to get a fresh result. If it now returns invalid, remove it from your list.
Check your sending setup. Bounces can also result from issues with your sending domain’s SPF, DKIM, or DMARC configuration — not just the recipient address.
Contact support if you’re seeing a pattern of bounces on safe addresses that re-verify as safe. This may indicate a data issue that OrbiSearch support can investigate.

Results are cached for 24 hours. If you re-verify within that window, you’ll receive the cached result. To force a fresh check, wait until the cache expires or contact support.

Get Started

Core Concepts

Guides

How to Handle Email Verification Results

Understanding status and substatus

Status values

Substatus values

Recommended actions by status

Use-case guidance

Using the additional flags

What to do with `unknown` results

What to do when a safe email bounces

Get Started

Core Concepts

Guides

​Understanding status and substatus

​Status values

​Substatus values

​Recommended actions by status

​Use-case guidance

​Using the additional flags

​What to do with unknown results

​What to do when a safe email bounces

Understanding status and substatus

Status values

Substatus values

Recommended actions by status

Use-case guidance

Using the additional flags

What to do with `unknown` results

What to do when a safe email bounces