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Check an old email list before it touches your sending domain

Your list with every address sorted into send, held back and do not send. Only addresses safe to send to are in send, and you know how many would have bounced before one of them reaches your sending domain.

use when
you are about to email a list you did not build this month, such as an old export, a bought list or last year's campaign
starts from
A list

The prompt

Paste it into Claude, ChatGPT or any assistant with Hyreflow connected. The first line tells your agent to use Hyreflow, so it reads the play, asks before it spends anything, and hands the work back to you.

paste this into your assistant
Use hyreflow and check every email on this list before I send to it.

The list is <FILE_PATH_OR_CAMPAIGN_NAME>. It came from
<WHERE_THE_LIST_CAME_FROM> and nobody has sent to it since <LAST_USED>.

How I want it run:
- First the free checks: duplicates, addresses that are not valid email
  syntax, and shared inboxes such as info@ or jobs@. Show me the counts.
- Drop anyone on my suppression list: <SUPPRESSION_FILE_OR_COLUMN>.
- Then check every address that is left. Only addresses that are safe to
  send to go in send.
- Sort the results into send, held back and do not send. Anything the
  check does not clear goes in held back, catch-all addresses included.
- Do not look for replacement addresses. I only want the verdicts.

Run five rows first and tell me what the full run costs before you do the
rest. Wait for my go-ahead.

Give me back my list with the group on every row. Do not
send anything, and do not change the campaign or load the list anywhere.

Replace every <PLACEHOLDER> with your own detail. Everything else can stay as written.

Rather not fill the blanks by hand? Build this prompt in your dashboard

What you need first

  • The list as a CSV or spreadsheet export with an email column, or a campaign in your sequencer that has not started
  • Your suppression list, if you keep one: unsubscribes, past bounces, do-not-contact
  • A rule for the uncertain addresses: hold them back, or accept the risk
  • A Hyreflow workspace with credits, or your own provider keys connected

Tools it can reach for

The agent picks per step from what your workspace has. Nothing here is required by name.

What happens when you run it

Free steps are marked free. Anything that spends credits is marked, and the agent asks before the first paid run of any size.

  1. 1

    Read the list, wherever it sits

    free

    A file, pasted rows, or the leads already loaded into a campaign that has not started. Reading a campaign in your own sequencer costs nothing, and the agent only reads it.

  2. 2

    Run the free checks first

    free

    Duplicates, addresses that are not valid email syntax, shared inboxes such as info@, and anyone on your suppression list are taken out by plain comparison. Nothing is spent, and every address removed here is one you do not pay to check.

  3. 3

    Pilot five addresses and price the run

    credits

    Five addresses are checked so you see what comes back. The agent states the figure for the full list and waits for your go-ahead.

  4. 4

    Check every address

    credits

    Each address is checked down to the mailbox, and only addresses safe to send to come back. Invalid addresses, catch-all domains, shared inboxes, disposable addresses and full or switched-off mailboxes are all held back, and the agent tells you how many.

  5. 5

    Sort into send, held back and do not send

    free

    Addresses the check cleared go in send. Addresses it did not clear go in held back. Everything the free checks removed goes in do not send, each with its reason.

  6. 6

    Hand the list back

    free

    A copy of your list with the group on every row, plus the counts per group. Your original file and your campaign are left as they were.

What a run costs

Credits are spent per record the play actually works, and a lookup that finds nothing usually costs nothing. The two figures are the run where the first provider answers and the run where every lookup walks its full chain.

recordsif the first provider answersif every lookup walks the chain
25under $11.5 creditsunder $11.5 credits
100under $15.3 creditsunder $15.3 credits
500$2.525 credits$2.525 credits
1,000$550 credits$550 credits

Free before anything is charged

  • Read the list, wherever it sits
  • Run the free checks first
  • Sort into send, held back and do not send
  • Hand the list back

What moves the number

  • How many records survive the free filters. Everything dropped before the paid steps costs nothing.
  • Providers you connect with your own key. Those calls bill your account, not your credits.

An estimate, not a quote, priced at the volume credit rate. Your agent sizes the run against your own workspace and tells you what it will cost before it spends anything.

A bounce costs more than the check that would have caught it

Old lists decay. People change jobs, companies close mailboxes, and a list that was good when somebody built it carries more dead addresses the longer it sits. You cannot see that by looking at it. A dead address and a live one are the same string of characters.

Your sending domain finds out the hard way. Mailbox providers judge a sender partly by how much of its mail bounces. Send an unchecked export and the bounces count against the domain, and the damage is not limited to that campaign: your later mail, including replies to live clients, starts landing in spam.

So this play finds nothing. The addresses are already on your list. It checks each one and sorts the list into what you can send to, what you should hold back, and what you should never send to.

What you get back

Your list with a column added: the group.

Send holds the addresses the check cleared as safe to send to. Held back contains everything the check did not clear: invalid addresses, catch-all addresses, shared inboxes and anything it could not reach a verdict on. Do not send contains everything the free checks and your suppression list removed, each with its reason.

You also get the counts per group. Nothing is sent and no campaign is touched.

Variations worth knowing

The list is already in a campaign. If the leads sit in Instantly, lemlist or SendKit and the campaign has not started, the agent reads them from there with your own account connected. It reads only. Taking the failed addresses out is yours to do.

Check the sender as well. If you send through SendKit, the agent can also read the health and warm-up state of the mailbox you plan to send from.

Use a different checker. The standard check is Hyreflow's own. Ask for Enrichley, LeadMagic or Icypeas by name and it runs instead.

Replace the dead ones. Not in this play. Get emails and mobiles for a list you already have finds current addresses for the rows that failed.

Then build the campaign. With a clean send group, build the outreach sequence and keep the hold group out of it.

Where this goes wrong

Treating held back as send. An address the check did not clear may bounce or may not, and nobody can tell you which. A few in a campaign is a judgement call. A list that is mostly held back is a list to leave alone. If you want catch-all addresses kept and labelled instead, ask for Enrichley by name.

Checking once and sending much later. A verdict describes the mailbox on the day it was checked. If the campaign slips, the check slips with it.

Deliverable is not the same as welcome. A bought list can pass every check and still draw complaints. The check says nothing about whether these people expect to hear from you.

Shared inboxes pass. An info@ address is perfectly deliverable, and nobody you want to reach reads it. That is why they are counted in the free checks and shown to you.

Questions

Why do bounces matter so much?

Because mailbox providers judge a sending domain partly on how much of its mail bounces. A sender who keeps writing to mailboxes that do not exist looks like a sender who does not know who they are writing to, and the penalty lands on the domain, not on the campaign. Your later mail, including replies to live clients, starts going to spam. Old lists carry dead addresses for an ordinary reason: people change jobs.

What do the groups mean, and what do I do with each?

Send: the check cleared the address as safe to send to, so send. Held back: the check could not clear it. That covers an address that does not exist, a catch-all domain where nobody can prove the mailbox exists, a shared inbox such as info@, a disposable address, a full or switched-off mailbox, and an address the check could not reach a verdict on. Hold these, send only if you accept the risk, or reach the person on LinkedIn, and keep the person, because it is the address that failed and not the contact. Do not send: the free checks removed it, for a duplicate, a broken address, a shared inbox or your suppression list.

What does the check cost?

After the five-address pilot the agent gives you the figure for your whole list and waits for your go-ahead. Duplicates, broken syntax and suppressed addresses are taken out first, free, so you do not pay to check them.

Should it find a replacement for the dead addresses?

Not in this play. It does one job, so the cost is a simple count and the result is a clean yes or no on the list you have. The do not send group is a ready-made input for a lookup afterwards: work email for client contacts, personal email for candidates. Decide that once you have seen how many there are.

The list passed. Is it safe to send?

It is safe from bounces on the day it was checked. A check describes a mailbox, not a person's wish to hear from you, so a bought list can pass every check and still draw complaints, which hurt a sender as much as bounces do. And a check ages. If the list sits unused again, check it again before you send.

Run this play on your own desk

Connect hyreflow to Claude or ChatGPT, paste the prompt above, and fill in the blanks. By default it shows you the cost before it spends.