# Adalo experiments: checking if user exists with Adalo API - Proof of Concept

**URL:** <https://forum.adalo.com/t/adalo-experiments-checking-if-user-exists-with-adalo-api-proof-of-concept/6948>\
**Category:** Resources & Tutorials\
**Created:** [December 11, 2020, 1:30pm UTC](https://forum.adalo.com/t/adalo-experiments-checking-if-user-exists-with-adalo-api-proof-of-concept/6948 "2020-12-11T13:30:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Victor](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.adalo.com/victor/32/2054_2.png) [@Victor](https://forum.adalo.com/u/Victor)\
**Post date:** [December 11, 2020, 1:30pm UTC](https://forum.adalo.com/t/adalo-experiments-checking-if-user-exists-with-adalo-api-proof-of-concept/6948/1 "2020-12-11T13:30:55Z")

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I decided to share my “Friday Crazy Experiment” with you: an alternative way to check if user exists in a User’s database.

Comments are welcome - I’m in unchartered waters here 🙂

Classical way of doing this is by having a custom list of users, having a button in this list, and adding a filter on the list so that user’s email equals the email in an input box. But sometimes this could be slow.  
In this video I show an alternative - with Adalo API. This is a Proof of Concept and should be used with care 🙂 (especially when setting it up).  
Enjoy:

[![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/uploads/adalo/original/3X/9/3/9372aa082cd0016a2722bdeb60b1c632fabe8f0a.jpeg "Adalo experiments: checking if user exists with Adalo API - Proof of Concept, use with care :)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpRRRdynP7I)

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**Author:** ![NigelG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ea5d25/32.png) [@NigelG](https://forum.adalo.com/u/NigelG)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2020, 3:35pm UTC](https://forum.adalo.com/t/adalo-experiments-checking-if-user-exists-with-adalo-api-proof-of-concept/6948/2 "2020-12-12T15:35:52Z")

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Thanks, that is … way out there 🙂

In my case I don’t want to check to see if the user exists, I want to check to see (on signup) if the Email is on an external list. So I am whitelisting a set of emails.

The current delay in external collections makes this it a bit tricky, but I like the idea of using an API like you did.

Thanks again.

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**Author:** ![Victor](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.adalo.com/victor/32/2054_2.png) [@Victor](https://forum.adalo.com/u/Victor)\
**Post date:** [December 14, 2020, 9:25am UTC](https://forum.adalo.com/t/adalo-experiments-checking-if-user-exists-with-adalo-api-proof-of-concept/6948/3 "2020-12-14T09:25:39Z")

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Hi @NigelG,

Ok, got that.  
Not sure the way I used in the video work for this - as I’m using this “Email already exists” in Users collection as a kind of a “workaround” for uniqueness checking… but this will not apply to other collections.

Would be great to know how you solved it with API! It’s not an easy task as I see 🙂

Best regards,  
Victor.