About TrustThisEmail
A free, private way to check a suspicious email, link or message before you click anything in it.
Why it exists
Fake emails and texts are the most common way people lose passwords, money and accounts. They're built to look real, and they usually push you to act fast.
Plenty of tools will check a suspicious email for you, but most want you to upload it or forward it to them. That means handing a stranger a message that may contain your name, your accounts and your contacts. TrustThisEmail works the other way round: the checking happens on your own device, and the email itself is never sent anywhere. (If you choose the optional online checks, only website names and file fingerprints are looked up.)
How it works
There are three ways to check something:
- Email file - save the email and drop it on the page. This is the most thorough check, because it can see who really sent the email and how it got to you.
- A link - copy a link (without tapping it) and paste it in. The address is read, never opened.
- Email text - paste the words of an email or text message to check them for scam tactics.
It looks for the tricks scammers rely on: senders pretending to be a company they're not, lookalike website addresses, links that don't go where they say, dangerous attachments, and wording designed to rush you - like fake unpaid tolls, packages "on hold", account suspensions, refunds and gift-card requests. The result tells you what it found, in plain words, and what to do next.
It also looks inside attachments without opening them - what's in a ZIP file, macros in Office documents, code and links hidden in PDFs, and links hidden in QR codes.
It's a set of rules that runs inside your browser. No AI service reads your message, and there's no account to make.
Who made it
TrustThisEmail was built independently by someone who works in IT security and spends a lot of time looking at phishing emails that real people have reported. It's a personal project: no company behind it, no ads, and no data collected.
Things to know
- It's a guide, not a guarantee. No automated check catches every scam, and it can occasionally flag a real message. If something asks for money, a password or a code, check with the company or person directly, using contact details you already have.
- It's not affiliated with any company it mentions. Names like Microsoft, PayPal, USPS or E-ZPass appear only because scammers pretend to be them.
- It's free.