How to check if an email address exists without sending an email?

Question

I have come across this PHP code to check email address using SMTP without sending an email.

Has anyone tried anything similar or does it work for you? Can you tell

Answer 1

I think you cannot, there are so many scenarios where even sending an e-mail can fail. Eg. mail server on the user side is temporarily down, mailbox exists but is full so message cannot be delivered, etc.

That's probably why so many sites validate a registration after the user confirmed they have received the confirmation e-mail.