I own a database SQL 7.0, and in that database there are a large number of outdated email addresses.

Is there a program that can identify the outdated addresses and remove them?

I am not a DBA so please take that into consideration.

Thanks

Thanks that is something we have dicussed, and we did want to avoid being thrown on a anti-spam list.

Also even though all the e-mail is self-populated many of the listings have long forgotten that they even registered.

So much SPAM is going around it is easy to be confused.

I have even considered sending a email that asked them to verify their information as being correct, and when they do that by clicking a verifying link only the good records are in the database.

That is kind of a final effort, and starting from zero.

I feel over 60% of the records are dead records that have never been updated, as many have changed their email address.

Thanks for your response.

Dirty_Dawg wrote: I have even considered sending a email that asked them to verify their information as being correct, and when they do that by clicking a verifying link only the good records are in the database.

I think that many of us would not respond to an email like that. To much like recent Paypal and MS scams.

The only real way to do this, lacking any last-login info,  is to send them an email and catch the bounce-backs. If you have last-login info, just wipe the ones over a year old.

Consider getting a similar sounding domain name and a $5 per month unix account somewhere that offers news letters. Send them an email from that account reminding them of all the great features on your site that they should come to look at. Catch the bounce backs.

At the end of the month, cancel the unix account. Your out-of-pocket is $15-$20 US.

Sounds like a plan to consider.

I have sent a test message out and captured the bounce backs. The problem is deleting each one. There are several thousand.

I have the databse down to 170,000 and about 60 plus percent is dead addresses. So to pull the address of eachbounce back to take many hours.. days.

Thanks for the input.. I like the idea.

You don't want to deal with that may by hand?

If you use the Unix option, put the "TO" email address on some tagged line in the body (e.g. "We have your email address listed as:"). In Unix, you can grep the tagged lines out into a file. You could probably grep the "TO" lines out of the headers, but there might be a few more characters to get rid off, and some mail servers screw with the headers a little.

If you've already gotten the bouncebacks, you should be able to put together a quick asp script to pull the info out into a file that can be run into another script to delete the records with those addresses.

Thanks for your input. The DBA that was trying to write a script finally gave up, and started looking for an off the shelf solution.

At this time he has not found one.

I appreciate your time to offer your input