01 · Product name
Maigret
Build a dossier from a username across thousands of sites.
Published by soxoj.
In short
Maigret takes a username and checks a very large list of sites, then tries to pull public details from the profiles it finds. It is a free, open-source command-line tool. Reports can be written as HTML, JSON, or other formats depending on the version. Like Sherlock, a hit is a URL to verify, not an identity.
Product pricing strategy
02
Free
Maigret is free. You do not buy a seat to use what the project publishes.
Yes. Maigret is free and open source.
Utility and features
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Maigret is the longer username pass. Where Sherlock aims to answer “does this URL exist?”, Maigret tries to extract a name, a bio, or a link from the page and can recurse into usernames it finds there. That extra ambition creates extra false positives. A site that returns a profile shell for every string will poison a report if you do not look.
- Dossier, not just URLs. Parsing profile fields is the difference from Sherlock. Those fields are whatever the page exposed that day.
- Reports. HTML is readable. JSON is for notes and diffs. PDF support depends on the version and on local libraries.
- Recursion. It can follow alternate usernames. Turn that on only when you are ready to verify a wider set of collisions.
The site list is large — the project documents thousands — and it changes. Run a current checkout. Use the HTML report when you need to show your work, and keep the JSON when you need to diff a later run. It will not defeat private accounts. It should not be aimed at harassing a person. The lawful use is the same as the rest of this directory: an investigation you are allowed to do, documented, and checked by a human.
- 1
Install Maigret and run a single username you are allowed to investigate.
- 2
Open the report and delete hits that are empty pages or the wrong person.
- 3
If you enable recursion, budget time to review the second hop.
- 4
Save the report with the tool version. The site list will move.
Caveats
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Maigret is a free local username search with a larger site list and optional HTML output. It has the same failure modes as Sherlock: reused names, soft responses, private accounts, and checks that break when a site redesigns.
The HTML report looks finished. It is a list of HTTP opinions. Verify before you identify a person. Do not run it against a username you are not allowed to investigate just because it is one command.
Screenshots
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Potential use cases
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- Sherlock returned a short list and you want a second username tool with a longer report. Run Maigret on the same handle. You get claimed profiles and, if you asked, an HTML report of what was checked. Open the URLs. Pivot an email published on a real profile to Holehe, and a personal domain to theHarvester or Amass if you are allowed to look at that domain. A longer list is not a higher confidence.
- You need public profile text for an authorized investigation. Use the report as an index, then save the pages you actually rely on with Hunchly or an ordinary archive of the URL. Maigret’s parse can miss a bio or grab the wrong field. The page is the source. The report is the map.
- A handle might point at a personal site. Read the Maigret hits for a link in a bio, open that site, and only then decide whether it belongs in the case. Pivot a site that is just a link-in-bio page carefully: it is often a shared product, not a server the person administers. False positives on common names are the main pitfall. Compare with Sherlock on the same string and keep the intersection, not the union, when the name is short.
Hard cases
The case where the first result is easy to over-read.
The HTML report gets pasted into the file
The report is long, dated, and tempting to attach as an exhibit. It includes sites that 404, sites about a different person, and sites the tool merely tried. Strip it to the URLs you opened and can describe. Note the tool version and the date. If you need a second method, run Sherlock on the same handle and keep only the overlap until you have another selector.
Questions
Is Maigret free?
Yes. Maigret is free and open source.
Should I run Maigret or Sherlock?
Sherlock is the quicker existence check. Maigret spends more time parsing profiles and writing a report. Many analysts run Sherlock first.
Citations
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Titled sources. These public pages are what the quotes on this listing come from.
Product
Maigret repository
https://github.com/soxoj/maigretDocumentation
Maigret README
https://github.com/soxoj/maigret/blob/main/README.md