| Guide | GDE-056 |
| Topic | Blackbird OSINT |
| Domain | Username and email correlation |
| Last updated | September 2026 |
Short answer: Run Blackbird against the username and any associated email address, cross-check each hit against a second tool such as Sherlock or Maigret, and export a PDF or CSV report for the case file.
What is Blackbird?
Blackbird is the practice of using the open-source Blackbird tool to search a username or email address across more than 600 platforms at once, using WhatsMyName's community-maintained site list to keep false positives low, and exporting the results as a polished report rather than checking each platform by hand.
Blackbird is a free, open-source Python tool that checks a username or email address against more than 600 platforms, leaning on the community-maintained WhatsMyName site list to keep its false-positive rate low. Results can be exported as PDF, CSV or through a dedicated HTTP mode, and the tool includes AI-assisted profiling of what it finds, all run from a single command-line interface.
It sits in the same category as Sherlock, Maigret and Tookie-OSINT, and is frequently compared to them for its speed and its combined username-and-email search in one pass, rather than requiring two separate tools.
| • | Searching a username and an associated email address in a single pass rather than two separate tools |
| • | Building a fast first-pass account list before a deeper Maigret-style extraction |
| • | Exporting a polished PDF or CSV report directly from the command line for a case file |
| • | Cross-checking a Sherlock or Maigret hit against a tool built on a different underlying site list |
How do you run a Blackbird search?
Six steps from a first fast pass through to a defensible, exported report.
The following tools are used across the steps below.
Blackbird: Free, open-source. Searches a username or email address across 600-plus platforms from a single command-line tool.
WhatsMyName: Free, open-source. The community-maintained site list Blackbird draws on to reduce false positives.