🚀 Zero-Cost Bulk Email Verifier (n8n + Reacher)

Stop paying hundreds of dollars a month for services like NeverBounce, Hunter.io, or ZeroBounce.

This repository contains a 100% free, self-hosted, and automated bulk email verification pipeline. It uses n8n for visual workflow automation and the blazing-fast, Rust-based Reacher API for SMTP handshakes.

✨ Features

• 100% Free & Unlimited: No monthly subscriptions or API credit limits.
• Blazing Fast: Powered by check-if-email-exists (written in Rust).
• Google Sheets Integration: Automatically pull unverified emails from a Google Sheet and update the rows with Valid, Invalid, or Catch-All statuses.
• Visual Automation: Fully customizable via n8n.

🏗️ Architecture

1. Google Sheets: Acts as your database for leads.
2. n8n (Workflow): Triggers the pipeline, reads the emails, and iterates through them.
3. Reacher API (Docker): Pings the target mail server via SMTP to check if the inbox actually exists (without sending an email).
4. Google Sheets: n8n writes the verified status back to your sheet.

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🛠️ Getting Started

1. Spin up the Verification API

We use Docker to run the verification engine locally so you don't hit any external API limits.

# Clone this repository
git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/ZeroCostEmailVerifier.git
cd ZeroCostEmailVerifier

# Start the Reacher API in the background
docker-compose up -d

The API will now be running at http://localhost:8080.

2. Import the Automation Workflow

1. Open your self-hosted n8n instance (or n8n desktop app).
2. Go to Workflows -> Add Workflow.
3. Click the gear icon (Options) in the top right -> Import from File.
4. Select the n8n_bulk_verifier_workflow.json file from this repository.
5. Connect your Google Sheets credential in n8n and point it to your lead sheet!

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⚠️ Notes on Deliverability

Because this uses standard SMTP port 25 checks, running this on a standard residential IP (like your home Wi-Fi) might result in timeouts from strict mail servers (like Google or Microsoft) that block residential IP pings. For best results on massive lists, host the docker-compose stack on a cheap VPS (like DigitalOcean or Linode) with an unblocked port 25.

🤝 License

MIT License - Feel free to use, modify, and distribute.