Feature Request: Search by Email Address

[ruidazeng]

Description

I would like to suggest a feature enhancement: the ability to search for accounts using an email address instead of a username. This functionality could broaden Sherlock's utility, especially in scenarios where only an email address is available.

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

[bytexenon]

Hello,

This is a very interesting idea, but it would be really difficult to implement. Most web services do not expose users' email addresses, unlike (public) usernames. Sherlock works by checking sites' URL pattern with the username (e.g., https://reddit[.]com/users/<username_here>). You can't check for an email in the same way (e.g., https://reddit[.]com/user/<someones_email>), as sites like Reddit do not expose email addresses.

The only way to check emails would be through checking breached databases, which is out of scope of the project and potentially illegal.

If you have other ideas on how to achieve this, I'd love to hear them. However, at the moment, it seems unfeasible.

[ruidazeng]

Hello,

This is a very interesting idea, but it would be really difficult to implement. Most web services do not expose users' email addresses, unlike (public) usernames. Sherlock works by checking sites using a username template (e.g., https://reddit[.]com/users/<username_here>). You can't check for an email in the same way (e.g., https://reddit[.]com/user/<someones_email>), as sites like Reddit do not expose email addresses.

The only way to check emails would be through checking breached databases, which is out of scope of the project and potentially illegal.

If you have other ideas on how to achieve this, I'd love to hear them. However, at the moment, it seems unfeasible.

Hmm I see. I remember reading that some sites do have emails linked to user profiles, though it might just be a smaller group compared to sites can be searched by username. I saw a Reddit thread mention tools like Spokeo, BeenVerified, and Lullar that supposedly do this. I’ll dig into it a bit more.

[bytexenon]

Hmm I see. I remember reading that some sites do have emails linked to user profiles, though it might just be a smaller group compared to sites can be searched by username. I saw a Reddit thread mention tools like Spokeo, BeenVerified, and Lullar that supposedly do this. I’ll dig into it a bit more.

Those services typically use data from breached databases posted on hacking forums, and most are paywalled without an accessible API. The closest service we could use is https://haveibeenpwned[.]com, which has an API, but it only shows the sites where the email was breached without additional information, so it's not suitable.

Regarding sites that do expose emails, there are very few. GitHub is a notable example, as it exposes emails and timezones in commits. However, you can't search for an email directly in a search bar or by using the API; you need to find a user's commit first, which requires knowing the username. Additionally, organization profiles on GitHub expose email addresses, which is searchable in the search bar, but not many users create their own organizations.

And just implementing this feature for Github alone would require a lot of effort. The creators of this tool could consider it, but given the limited number of sites that expose email addresses and the difficulty involved, it may not be feasible.