Social media platforms, tools, services, and every other online platform require email so every user can have a unique identifier for managing and creating their account.
Besides that, email addresses are used for confirming users’ identity online.
Yet, fraudulent accounts are still on the rise, and most online users are still victims of catfishing, job offer scams, rental scams, etc. Last year catfishing scams only cost an average of $132.5 million per quarter.
So, verification methods for social media became essential and many tools and solutions appeared on the market.
We dived deeper into the topic and we discovered what are the most effective ways to search social media by email.
Keep reading if you want to find out how to:
- Find your old social media accounts
- Search other’s social media profiles by email (an approach mostly used by businesses)
- Best tools for searching social media by email
- Privacy concerns
How to Search Social Media by Email to find your profiles
When you create a social media account using your email, you leave a permanent digital footprint. Every account you create with your email address is trackable.
That includes all social media accounts created with that email, subscriptions to online services, accounts for online shopping, and the list goes on.
Depending on what you need, you can manually search social media accounts by email or through a search engine or tool.
Retrieve your old account from a specific platform
If you want to get your old account through your email, all you have to do is:
- Go to the platform and click on the Log In
- Type your email address
- Click Forgot Password
- Wait for instructions and follow through
- Reset your password
This is the simplest way to retrieve your old account which many people overlook as an option.
Find all your social media accounts by email
You can pull all accounts linked to your email address by doing a reverse email lookup.
Reverse email lookup refers to the process of finding out all accounts linked to an email, phone number, or other personal information you leave when creating an email.
Most email providers (Google, Outlook, and Hotmail) allow this feature in the security. This type of search entails all social media accounts linked to the email, but service accounts as well. That includes Netflix, Amazon, Spotify, etc.
To search social media accounts using this strategy, open your Google Account and click on Security on the left-side menu as in the picture below.
Scroll down to the end until you see Your saved passwords and click on the little arrow.
This will take you to all accounts you’ve registered using this email and that’s how you can find social media accounts you’ve forgotten existed. You can update your passwords to retrieve the accounts, or simply check where you’ve left a footprint.
Search social media platforms by email [Guide for all platforms]
Whether you want to find leads for your business, or your customers on social media, or simply find someone you met online, you can manually search every social media platform.
Below, you can find short and simple guides on how to search LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube by email.
Search LinkedIn by email
Searching LinkedIn by email is easy because most users leave their emails public so potential collaborators can send their proposals. Therefore, to find a profile, visit LinkedIn and follow the steps below:
- Click on the Search Bar and select People to filter only people search.
- Type the email address and click Search.
- The search results will include the email address, the person’s name, the entire name and profile picture, and their headline.
Keep in mind that only public profiles are searchable on LinkedIn by email. Profiles whose email is private will not show up in the search results.
An alternative would be to try searching for their name based on the information in the email. However, this method has searchable limits on LinkedIn if you have a generic contact address in a company format (for example: info@company.com).
Typically, searching LinkedIn by email is to verify the integrity of a new collaborator. Plus, to find more information such as previous working experience, information about the company, etc.
Search Facebook by email
To search Facebook by email follow these steps:
- Navigate to the Search Bar and type the email address.
- Click on the magnifying glass, or hit Enter to start the search.
- Click on the People icon to view only people.
Similarly, as with LinkedIn, you can only find people whose email address is public. If the person you’re searching left their email address public, then this step is successful. Otherwise, you may need to use some of the tools discussed below.
Search Twitter by email
It’s easy to search Twitter by email because you can even find profiles with hidden emails. Here’s what you need to do:
- Add the email to your contacts
- Visit Twitter and log in to your account
- Click on More
- Find Settings and Privacy
- Click on Privacy and Safety
- Choose Discoverability and Contacts
- Tick the box as in the example below:
Once you complete these steps, you need to log in to your Twitter account from your mobile device. Repeat the same steps from the desktop version to find the discoverability options and select the final step as shown below:
Activate the sync address book contacts to upload all your emails, phone numbers, and other contact information. This way you can easily connect with Twitter users from your list, including the one you need.
Lastly, keep in mind that you don’t expose personal information by syncing your contact book. It is created to help you connect with accounts you may know.
Search Instagram by email
Instagram doesn’t have a feature to search for accounts by email, so searching Instagram by email is more challenging compared to other social media platforms.
But, since it’s owned by Facebook, almost all accounts are linked to a corresponding Facebook profile. Therefore, if you want to find an Instagram account by email, follow the steps to search Facebook by email.
If you want to find your forgotten Instagram account by email you need to go to Instagram, reset your password and you will retrieve the old account.
Search TikTok by email
TikTok doesn’t feature searching by email option. However, there are two ways you can search TikTok by email that work depending on the case.
First, if the email address contains their name, try searching for a username based on the information found in the mail. Just type the name in the search bar on TikTok and see if you can find the person of interest.
Second, if the email address does not contain the name and last name, you can email them to send you the TikTok account directly.
Search YouTube by email
Similar to TikTok, YouTube doesn’t have an option to search by email.
However, by typing the email address in the search box, YouTube will automatically associate accounts related to the email by keywords. It’s likely to find the matching profile if the target person has a large subscription base.
Unfortunately, the odds are low to find a profile with a smaller audience. Therefore, to find a YouTube account by email you need to use a tool.
The Best Tools for Searching Social Media by Email in 2024
Searching social media by email manually may not always be a productive verification method. It’s limited, time-consuming, and may often lead to an empty-handed outcome.
In this case, you need to use tools for further online searches that can deliver the optimal results to meet your search goals.
Search-by-email tools allow you to search by a single or bulk email. To find out more about the features of these tools, keep reading.
Search single emails with BeenVerified
BeenVerified is a search engine tool that operates by the reversed email lookup by adding a single email address, It filters all social media networks related to the person’s email address. It lets you find the targeted social media account and all other online accounts linked to that email.
Besides finding social media accounts, you get access to public data such as criminal records, professional licenses, bankruptcies and liens, and personal information about a person like phone numbers, addresses, other emails, etc. With this information at hand, the verification process will run seamlessly.
BeenVerified helped many people verify the identity of the people they met on dating sites or the credibility of their coworkers. Just keep in mind that BeenVerified is not free, but a super affordable email lookup tool.
Moreover, you can use BeenVerified as a monitoring tool to search your email address and see what’s under your account.
To use BeenVerified you need to:
- Visit BeenVerified
- Click on Sign In
- Accept the terms and conditions
- Choose a subscription plan
- Log in to your account
- Select email lookup
- Enter the email address
- Wait for your results
Search bulk emails with influencers.club
If you want to find social media accounts from large email lists, we can help.
With a database of 80M+ social media accounts, we help companies identify potential influencers among their customers and gain insights into their interests.
Plus, we provide addition information about each social media profile, including engagement, location, interests, and more.
To do this, follow these steps:
- Register at influencers.club
- Select Enrichment
- Click on the +Add Batch to upload your emails
- Wait for the results
Once you upload the list of emails, we will match your list with our 80M+ database of social media profiles and we will provide you with all the attributes we have from all social media platforms.
Want to find social media profiles from your email list?
Privacy Concerns and Ethical Approach
Searching social media by email is completely legal when this information is shared publicly.
However, if you use the information of someone else for impersonation then you are making a felony and it can be used in court against you.
So, some search engine tools may ask you to sign and agree that you will not use the information outside the research, against someone, or share them with the public.
Similarly, BeenVerified prohibits end-users from sharing or using the information they find through their engine against the Search Person and explicitly warns about their zero-tolerance for breaking the terms and conditions agreements. Therefore, please read the terms and conditions carefully before taking action.
Lastly, searching social media profiles from your email list is completely legal, as the profiles and information we provide are publicly available.
Conclusion
Searching social media by email is one of the most efficient ways to find information about someone you’re about to meet or collaborate with. We already mentioned some of the free versions to search social media by email.
However, the search tools to search social media with a single email or bulk are more than necessary from a safety aspect. The tools use advanced algorithms to improve the search results and collect information from all accounts.
Regardless of the search intent, the information you receive from the search tools allows you to make more informed and confident decisions about the person of interest and spares you from unnecessary unpleasant surprises.
FAQ
Yes. Every activity leaves a digital footprint that can be tracked later.
No. Deleted social media accounts are not visible on trackers, and cannot be found online. Otherwise, nothing is permanently gone from the Internet.
No. Facebook allows only one account per email. However, you can create pages under the same email.
