Email Safeguard

A comprehensive email validation library that provides domain suggestions, disposable email detection, and MX record validation with a focus on security and user experience.

Features

• 🔍 Smart validation with helpful suggestions
• 🛡️ Disposable email detection
• 📨 MX record validation with configurable timeout handling
• ⚡ Fast and customizable
• 🎯 Type hints and modern Python support
• 🔧 Configurable validation rules
• 🔄 Automatic retry mechanism for DNS queries

Installation

pip install email-safeguard

Quick Start

from email_safeguard.validator import EmailSafeguard

validator = EmailSafeguard()
result = validator.validate("[email protected]")

if result.is_valid:
    if result.suggestions:
        print(f"Email is valid but did you mean: {result.suggestions.get('domain')}?")
    else:
        print("Email is valid!")
else:
    print(f"Error: {result.message}")

Advanced Usage

Custom Configuration

validator = EmailSafeguard(
    check_mx=True,              # Enable MX record validation
    allow_disposable=False,     # Reject disposable emails
    suggest_corrections=True,   # Suggest corrections for typos
    max_distance=2,            # Maximum edit distance for suggestions
    dns_timeout=3.0,          # DNS query timeout in seconds
    dns_retries=2,            # Number of retry attempts for DNS queries
    retry_delay=1.0          # Delay between retries in seconds
)

Timeout Handling

You can control how the validator handles MX record timeouts:

# Strict validation (timeouts treated as invalid)
result = validator.validate("[email protected]", skip_mx_on_timeout=False)

# Lenient validation (timeouts treated as valid with warning)
result = validator.validate("[email protected]", skip_mx_on_timeout=True)

if result.result == ValidationResult.TIMEOUT:
    print("DNS query timed out")

Handling Results

from email_safeguard.validator import EmailSafeguard, ValidationResult

validator = EmailSafeguard()
result = validator.validate("[email protected]")

# Check the validation result
if result.result == ValidationResult.VALID:
    print("Email is valid!")
elif result.result == ValidationResult.DISPOSABLE:
    print("Disposable emails not allowed")
elif result.result == ValidationResult.INVALID_DOMAIN:
    if result.suggestions and 'domain' in result.suggestions:
        print(f"Invalid domain. Did you mean: {result.suggestions['domain']}?")
elif result.result == ValidationResult.NO_MX_RECORD:
    print("Domain has no mail server")
elif result.result == ValidationResult.TIMEOUT:
    print("MX record check timed out")

ValidationResult Types

The library provides several validation result types:

from email_safeguard.validator import ValidationResult

# Available validation results:
# ValidationResult.VALID          - Email is valid
# ValidationResult.INVALID_FORMAT - Email format is invalid
# ValidationResult.INVALID_DOMAIN - Domain is invalid
# ValidationResult.INVALID_TLD    - Top-level domain is invalid
# ValidationResult.DISPOSABLE     - Domain is a disposable email provider
# ValidationResult.NO_MX_RECORD   - Domain has no MX records
# ValidationResult.TIMEOUT        - MX record check timed out

Validation Response

The validate() method returns a ValidationResponse object with the following attributes:

class ValidationResponse:
    is_valid: bool              # Whether the email is valid
    result: ValidationResult    # The specific validation result
    message: str               # A descriptive message
    suggestions: Optional[Dict[str, str]]  # Suggested corrections if any

Performance Tuning

Adjust DNS query settings for your needs:

# For faster validation with less reliability
validator = EmailSafeguard(
    dns_timeout=1.0,    # Short timeout
    dns_retries=1,      # Single attempt
    retry_delay=0.5     # Short retry delay
)

# For more reliable validation
validator = EmailSafeguard(
    dns_timeout=5.0,    # Longer timeout
    dns_retries=3,      # More retries
    retry_delay=1.0     # Standard retry delay
)

Data Files

The library uses three customizable data files:

• popular_domains.txt: Common email domains
• popular_tlds.txt: Valid top-level domains
• disposable_domains.txt: Known disposable email providers

Custom Data Files

validator = EmailSafeguard(data_dir="path/to/data/directory")

Development

Running Tests

# Run all tests
python run test_validator

Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Author

Chukwuka Ibejih ([email protected])

Acknowledgements

Built with:

• Django - Email validation
• python-Levenshtein - String similarity
• dnspython - DNS queries

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