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It is NOT possible to verify an email address unless you send an email to it. And even then you may get a transient bounce. This gem tries its best to check to see if the address is valid. But is DOES NOT guarantee validity. Then why this gem? Because sometimes you receive a list of email addresses and you want to test them before adding to an email service provider list so your account is not blocked due to failing addresses. This gem helps in that process

Alternatives

See validates_email_format_of gem

email-authentication gem

Given an email address, check to see if it is valid. Check the structure of the address, MX record of the domain and if the domain accpts the SMTP connection

Usage case

Let's say you are using Amazon SES and you want to validate your email addresses before you send via SES (or any other provder). Amazon is quite particular about bounce rates and cchecking prior to sending via SES can prevent your account from being blocked.

Simplest usage

To test an email address via a class call. It returns boolean if success and a list of messages

success,msgs=EmailAuthentication::Base.check('an email adresss')

Use gem

To test an email address. It returns boolean if success and a list of messages

@f=EmailAuthentication::Base.new
success,msgs=@f.check('an email adresss')

Use just a portion of gem

If you just want to use a portion of the gem (eg check_mx record) then just set the address and call the check funciton

@f=EmailAuthentication::Base.new
@f.set_address(@success)
success,msg= @f.check_format