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Check your references
Paste a reference list. Every entry with a DOI, an ISBN or an arXiv id is looked up against the real record, and anything that cannot be found is shown to you. It works as a reference finder too: each identifier comes back with the title on the real record. Free, and nothing you paste is stored.
Your browser sends the DOI or ISBN to Crossref or OpenLibrary directly. Entries without a supported identifier are left unchecked. The list is never sent to us, because there is no server here to send it to.
Why a reference list is worth checking
A reference that was never published looks exactly like one that was. It has a plausible author, a real journal, a year that fits, and a DOI made of the right number of digits. The only way to tell is to look it up, and a marker who checks two of them and finds one missing will check the rest.
A DOI either resolves or it does not
Crossref can confirm records in its own registry. A missing result can also mean the DOI belongs to another registry; it is not proof that a publication is fabricated.
A title that does not match is the other failure
A DOI copied from the wrong paper resolves perfectly and cites something else entirely. That is why the title you wrote is compared against the title on the record.
Not everything can be checked
A book chapter with no ISBN, a web page, a government report, an interview. Those are marked as such rather than passed, because saying nothing found would be misleading.
What each verdict means
Found, and the title matches
The identifier resolves and the title on the record is close to what you wrote. This is the result you want on every line.
Found, but the title does not match
The identifier belongs to a different piece of work. Usually a copy and paste error from the wrong row of a search result. The real title is shown so you can correct it.
No record found
The selected registry returned no record. This can mean a typo or a source outside its coverage, rather than a fabricated work. Check the identifier character by character first: a DOI copied out of a PDF often picks up a full stop at the end.
Nothing here can be looked up
No DOI, ISBN or arXiv id in that entry. It is not wrong, it just cannot be verified this way. Check it by hand.
Questions
Is my reference list uploaded anywhere?
No. Your browser asks Crossref, OpenLibrary and PubMed directly, the same way it would if you typed the identifier into their own sites. The list never reaches a server of ours, because there is not one in the path.
Can it catch a reference an AI invented?
Usually, yes, and that is the case it was built for. A fabricated DOI almost never resolves. An invented one that happens to resolve nearly always points at a different paper, which shows up as a title that does not match.
It says no record found, but I know the paper is real.
Check the identifier character by character first, because one wrong digit is the usual cause. After that: a preprint may never have been assigned a DOI, and OpenLibrary does not hold every regional ISBN. A source that cannot be looked up is not the same as one that does not exist, and the tool says which it means.
Does a clean result prove my references are right?
It proves each identifier resolves to a real record whose title matches what you wrote. It cannot tell you whether the source actually says what your essay claims it says. That part is still reading.
Why are some entries not checked at all?
Because they carry no DOI, ISBN or arXiv id, and there is nothing to look up. The tool reports those separately rather than passing them, since a pass it did not earn is worse than an honest gap.
THE ANDROID APP
Keep the ones that check out
CiteRight for Android keeps verified references in projects, formats them in six styles and exports a bibliography, so the work of checking a list is not thrown away afterwards.