Email Permutator
Turn a name and a company domain into every likely email format, ordered by how common each pattern actually is. Free, instant, nothing stored.
Enter a domain to generate candidates. A name is optional: without one you still get the role addresses worth trying.
Generates candidates only. Run them through a verifier before you send anything.
The patterns, and how often they occur
Company email conventions are not random. A handful of formats cover most of the web, which is what makes guessing viable at all. These are the ones the tool generates, in the order it ranks them.
| Pattern | Example for Ada Lovelace | How common |
|---|---|---|
| first.last@ | ada.lovelace@example.com | very common |
| first@ | ada@example.com | very common |
| flast@ | alovelace@example.com | very common |
| firstlast@ | adalovelace@example.com | common |
| first_last@ | ada_lovelace@example.com | common |
| first-last@ | ada-lovelace@example.com | common |
| firstl@ | adal@example.com | common |
| last@ | lovelace@example.com | occasional |
| last.first@ | lovelace.ada@example.com | occasional |
| lastf@ | lovelacea@example.com | occasional |
| lastfirst@ | lovelaceada@example.com | occasional |
| f.last@ | a.lovelace@example.com | occasional |
| first.l@ | ada.l@example.com | rare |
| fl@ | al@example.com | rare |
| f_last@ | a_lovelace@example.com | rare |
| lastname-firstname@ | lovelace-ada@example.com | rare |
How to actually land the email
- 1
Look for a known address on the domain first. A press page, a job ad, a PDF, a public Git commit. One confirmed address gives you the company pattern and ends the guessing entirely.
- 2
If there is none, generate the candidates here and take the top three or four. The long tail is there for completeness, not because you should send to all of it.
- 3
Verify before sending. A verifier checks the mailbox exists without sending mail. Skipping this step is how a 20% bounce rate happens, and bounce rate is what deliverability is built on.
- 4
Prefer a named person over a role address for outreach. Role addresses like info@ get pitched constantly and are usually read by whoever is least able to say yes.
- 5
If the named guesses all bounce, fall back to the contact form. On smaller publishers the form often reaches the editor faster than any address you could have guessed.
Why guessing beats scraping for link building
Most link-building outreach targets small publishers, niche blogs and single-author sites. Those are exactly the domains that email-finding databases cover worst, because the databases are built for B2B sales and weighted toward companies with LinkedIn headcount. A one-person gardening blog is invisible to them and trivial for a permutator, because the pattern is almost always first@ or hello@.
It cuts the other way for large publishers. If you are pitching a masthead with two hundred staff, a database will have the editor and the permutator will just give you fifteen guesses. Use the tool where it is strong: the long tail, where most link opportunities actually live.
Deliverability: the part people skip
Sending to unverified guesses is the single fastest way to damage a sending domain. Mailbox providers read hard bounces as a signal that you do not know who you are emailing, and the penalty lands on every message you send afterwards, including the ones to addresses that were correct.
Practical floor: verify every candidate, keep hard bounces under about 2%, warm a new sending domain before you use it in anger, and never send outreach from the domain your customer email runs on. None of that is optional at volume, and all of it is cheaper than rebuilding a burned domain reputation.
Frequently asked questions
What is an email permutator?+
A tool that takes a person's name and their company domain and generates every plausible address format: first.last@, flast@, first@, and so on. It does not find the address, it narrows the search from infinite possibilities to about fifteen, of which one is usually right.
Does this verify the addresses?+
No, and that is deliberate. Verification means probing mail servers, which needs a backend and a sending reputation you can damage. This tool generates candidates instantly and free; verify them with a dedicated verifier before you send, because emailing a list of guesses is the fastest way to wreck your deliverability.
Which pattern should I try first?+
first.last@ and first@ cover the majority of companies, with flast@ close behind. The list above is ordered by how often each pattern actually occurs, so working top to bottom is the right strategy. Better still, find one known address at the company and you have the pattern for everyone there.
How do I find the pattern without guessing?+
Look for any published address on the domain: the press page, a job listing, a PDF, a Git commit, an author bio. One confirmed address tells you the company convention, and then you construct the address you want rather than guessing at it.
What about names with accents or two surnames?+
The tool strips accents, so Müller becomes muller, which is what mail systems almost always do. Double-barrelled surnames are trickier: try the full hyphenated form, then each half separately. Spanish and Portuguese names often use only the first surname in the address.
Is guessing addresses legal?+
Generating candidates is not the issue. What you do with them is. Sending unsolicited commercial email is regulated by GDPR in the EU, CAN-SPAM in the US and PECR in the UK, and the rules differ by jurisdiction and by whether the recipient is a business contact. Verify before sending, keep volumes sane, honour opt-outs, and get advice if you are running this at scale.
Found the contact. Now run the campaign.
Guessing addresses is the first minute of outreach. LinkForce handles the rest: prospect lists, sequences, replies and a record of every link you land.
Start free