How to find someone's work email, the right way

• The company website: team, about, contact and careers pages, and the footer.
• Press releases and news, which often give a contact for the media or for sales.
• Public filings, research papers, conference speaker pages and government records, where people list their work address.
• Archived copies of the company website, for addresses that used to be on a page.

If a company publishes a few addresses, such as jane.doe@ and sam.lee@, its format is first.last. Applied to the person you want, that gives a likely address. Treat it as a guess until they reply, and label it as one in your own list.

If the guess bounces, stop using it. Do not try other patterns one after another on the same person.

• Do not guess personal addresses such as Gmail. People did not publish them for work.
• Do not buy contact lists or use leaked data.
• Do not copy data out of LinkedIn: it is against LinkedIn's terms.

Rules differ by country, and the country of the person you write to is what counts. In short:

• United States (CAN-SPAM): honest sender and subject, your postal address in the email, and a clear way to opt out that you honour within 10 business days.
• Canada (CASL): you need consent. Writing to an address a person published openly for work, about their work, can count as implied consent, as long as they did not say they do not want such messages.
• United Kingdom and European Union (GDPR, plus PECR in the UK and similar laws in each EU country): B2B email to work addresses is often allowed on legitimate interest, but rules vary by country. Be relevant, say where you found the address, and make opting out easy.
• Everywhere: you are responsible for emails sent for you, even by a tool or an agency. When in doubt, ask a local adviser.