01 · Product name
Blackbird
Fast username search across sites, from the command line.
Published by antoniaci.
In short
Blackbird is a free, open-source command-line tool that checks a username across a large list of sites. The project is at github.com/antoniaci/blackbird; an earlier p1ngul1n0 repository redirects there. A hit is a profile URL to open and verify. It does not prove two accounts belong to the same person, and sites that answer every name with a success page will create false positives.
Product pricing strategy
02
Free
Blackbird is free. You do not buy a seat to use what the project publishes.
Yes. Blackbird is open source and runs on your machine. There is no paid plan attached to the project.
Utility and features
03
Blackbird sits in the same drawer as Sherlock. You give it a username, it requests profile URLs, and it prints the sites that look occupied. Use it as a second implementation when you want to see whether a hit is the tool or the account. Site lists drift. A name that Sherlock finds and Blackbird misses — or the reverse — is a prompt to open the URL, not a contradiction to average away.
- What a hit means. A site returned a page for that username. Open it. Common names collide, and some sites answer every check.
- Where the code lives. The maintained repository is antoniaci/blackbird. The older p1ngul1n0/blackbird URL redirects there.
- How it compares. Sherlock is the other fast check. Maigret and Social Analyzer try to pull more from the profiles they find. Run one, verify, then decide if you need a longer report.
It runs locally. There is no official hosted search to subscribe to. Export the result with the date, then discard pages that belong to someone else or that are empty shells. Maigret and Social Analyzer go further into the profile. Blackbird is the short pass. Do not aim it at a person you have no reason to investigate.
- 1
Install Blackbird from the current GitHub repository and run it on a username you are allowed to check.
- 2
Open every URL you might cite. Drop error pages and profiles that are clearly someone else.
- 3
Save the output with the date. The site list will not be the same next month.
- 4
If the handle is common, add another selector before you merge accounts.
Caveats
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Blackbird is a free, local username tool, in the same family as Sherlock. Hits are HTTP heuristics. They include false positives and miss private or renamed accounts.
It does not prove identity. Running two username tools and adding the counts is how a weak lead becomes a fake number. Verify URLs. Do not send the username to a random website from the OSINT Framework just to get a third opinion.
Screenshots
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Potential use cases
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- Sherlock already ran. Run Blackbird on the same username as a second implementation. You get another list of sites that appeared to have the handle. Keep the intersection if the name is common, and open those URLs. Pivot disagreements to the live page, not to a third automated count. Two tools can share the same wrong assumption about a site.
- You are mapping a handle that is already in the case, not fishing. Export or copy the hits with the date and the tool version. The output is a verification queue. Maigret is the pivot when you want a longer HTML report. A brand-name squatting check is the same workflow with a brand string, and the same rule: a registration is not an impersonation until you read the profile.
- Checking your own old handles is a personal pass. The output is a list of accounts to close or recover through those sites. It is not an investigation. Rate limits and broken site checks still apply. Update the project before you trust a miss.
Hard cases
The case where the first result is easy to over-read.
Both tools agree and both are wrong
Sherlock and Blackbird both ‘find’ a site because that site returns a profile shell for every string. Open it once, see the shell, and record that the check is broken for that site. Do not cite the agreement as corroboration. Corroboration is a page that shows the handle and content you can describe.
Questions
Is Blackbird free?
Yes. Blackbird is open source and runs on your machine. There is no paid plan attached to the project.
Does Blackbird identify a person?
No. It finds URLs where a username appears to exist. Confirm the profile, and do not treat a shared handle as one person.
Citations
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Titled sources. These public pages are what the quotes on this listing come from.
Product
Blackbird repository
https://github.com/antoniaci/blackbirdDocumentation
Blackbird README
https://github.com/antoniaci/blackbird/blob/main/README.md