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Email status colors

Every revealed email in fareof carries a status badge. The color tells you, at a glance, how confident we are that the address will actually deliver. Here is what each one means and how to act on it.

Green — Valid

status: valid

The mailbox accepts mail and looks deliverable.

Confirmed by SMTP RCPT-TO probe. Domain has valid MX records. The mail server explicitly accepted the recipient address.

Deliverability
≈ 95–99% deliverable
Recommendation
Safe to send. Use these for cold outreach, sequencing, and auto-pilot campaigns.

Yellow — Risky

status: risky

The address looks plausible but the mail server is hiding the truth (catch-all, greylisting, accept-all).

The provider replies "OK" to every probe regardless of whether the inbox actually exists. Catch-all domains and Microsoft 365 / Workspace tenants commonly behave this way. Email may bounce.

Deliverability
≈ 50–80% deliverable
Recommendation
Send in small batches first. Pair with a soft warmup. Watch your bounce rate — if it spikes, downgrade to gray treatment.

Gray — Unknown

status: unknown

We could not verify this address. Either no SMTP probe was possible or the result was inconclusive.

Common reasons: provider blocks SMTP probes (Google, Microsoft), the actor returned a best-guess pattern (e.g. firstname.lastname@domain), or our verifier could not connect within the timeout window.

Deliverability
Unknown
Recommendation
Treat as a hypothesis. Test with a small low-volume warm send before committing to a full sequence. Monitor bounces closely.

Red — Invalid

status: invalid

The mailbox does not exist or rejects mail.

The recipient server explicitly returned a 5xx error or the domain has no working MX records. Sending here will hard-bounce.

Deliverability
0% — guaranteed bounce
Recommendation
Do not send. Bouncing invalid addresses hurts your sender reputation. Remove from your active list.

Red — Disposable

status: disposable

The domain belongs to a temporary / throwaway email service (e.g. mailinator, guerrillamail).

Even if the address technically receives mail, the inbox is anonymous and unmonitored. These contacts will not respond and may flag your domain.

Deliverability
Effective 0%
Recommendation
Skip. Not worth a credit, not worth a touch.

How fareof verifies email

For every reveal we run a multi-stage pipeline:

  1. Apify enrichment resolves the most likely corporate address pattern from public signals.
  2. MX validation confirms the domain accepts mail at all.
  3. SMTP RCPT-TO probe asks the recipient server directly whether the mailbox exists, without sending the email.
  4. Provider heuristics classify catch-all and accept-all behavior (yellow / risky).
  5. Best-guess fallback emits a low-confidence pattern (gray / unknown) when the provider blocks probes.

One reveal = one credit, regardless of which color you end up with. Re-revealing the same person from any surface (lead list, extension, bulk) within the freshness window is free.