mailerpress/get-contact-by-email locates a single contact by exact email match and returns the full record: lists, tags, custom fields and current status.
Email is the natural key for a contact, which makes this the usual entry point.
At a glance
| Ability | mailerpress/get-contact-by-email |
| Toolset | MailerPress — toolset/mailerpress |
| Group | MailerPress › Contacts |
| Requires | AcrossAI Pro, plus MailerPress active on the site |
| Capability | manage_options |
| Safety | Read-only — changes nothing |
| Repeatable | Idempotent — running it twice leaves the same result |
| Ships in | AcrossAI Pro 0.9.16 and later |
How it works
Lists and tags together are what decide whether a campaign reaches this person. A contact who is subscribed but on no list receives nothing from list-targeted campaigns, which is a common and invisible state.
The custom fields matter for personalisation. A contact with an empty field renders empty in any campaign referencing it, so checking a real contact’s fields is part of checking a campaign.
The status distinguishes four states that look similar and behave differently: subscribed, pending, unsubscribed and bounced.
Bounced is the one people miss. A hard-bounced contact is excluded from sends permanently and stays in the list, so the list count and the reachable count diverge.
Exact match only — no partial or case-insensitive matching, which makes this precise and unhelpful when the address is slightly wrong. mailerpress/list-contacts searches loosely.
Input
| Name | Type | Required | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
email | string | Yes | The exact email address. |
What comes back
| Name | Type | What it is |
|---|---|---|
contact | object | The record with lists, tags, custom fields and status. |
success | boolean | Whether the call completed. |
message | string | A one-line summary of what happened, suitable for showing a human. |
error_code | string | Present only on failure — a stable machine-readable reason, such as a missing field, a wrong field type or an unmet confirmation. |
Example
Ask your assistant:
Look up this contact by email.
It resolves to one call:
{
"ability": "mailerpress/get-contact-by-email",
"parameters": {
"email": "sam@example.com"
}
}Worth knowing
- Subscribed but on no list means list-targeted campaigns never reach them.
- Hard-bounced contacts stay in the list and are never sent to.
- Empty custom fields render as nothing in campaigns.
- Exact match only.
Related abilities
- MailerPress Update Contact — change it
- MailerPress Get Contact Activity — what they have done
Get the plugins:
AcrossAI Abilities Manager · AcrossAI MCP Manager
Browse the rest: Every ability, by category