Do you feel like you’re giving out your email address more and more these days?

Websites left and right are making us sign up for accounts and more likely than not, you’re required to enter an email address. While sometimes it’s worth it to gain “points” or “rewards” on various websites, there may be times you wish you had a fake email address to give out instead.

Did you know that you can create a “disposable email address”? This is a throwaway account, so you can stop handing out your real email address anytime you’re asked. This will not only help stop clogging up your inbox, but you’ll be making it way more difficult for companies to sell your personal information using your real name and email.

There are 2 types of Disposable Email Addresses:

• A “permanent” throwaway email can be used for a longer period of time, which might be a good option if you’re signing up for a website or social media account that you don’t want to give personal information to but will be using for a while.
• A “disposable” email is a temporary email that will be deleted after you get your use out of it.

 

How to Create a Throwaway Email

Use a website or an app to create a throwaway email

• • Temp Mail
    Automatically generates a temporary, anonymous, and free email address that self-destructs after a number of minutes
  • Guerrilla Mail
    Creates a temporary disposable email and refreshes every 10 seconds for you to check the inbox
  • Burner Mail
    Can be installed on both Google Chrome and Firefox. They generate a unique, anonymous email address for every service you sign up with. This makes it more difficult for companies to track your personal data.
  • 10-minute Mail
    As the name suggests, this website generates a throwaway email address that you can use for 10 minutes. Ideally, in that time frame, you can receive a validation email and activate an account without giving them access to your real information.
  • StartMail
    We’ve covered StartMail as our favorite email that allows for creating unlimited Alias email addresses and this service also allows you to create unlimited burner email addresses too.

 

Use Your Cell Phone

iPhone

If you’re using iOS 15.2 or later, there are two new features that help protect your privacy. You can opt to “Hide my Email” or create a disposable email address.

To send an email with Hide My Email:

• Tap to create a new mail message
• Then tap the From field
• Add a recipient and subject for your email
• Tap the From field again, and now tap From field one more time
• Scroll to see Hide My Email near bottom and tap
• A unique email address appears in the From field now!

How to create a Disposable Email Address:

• Go to Settings
• Tap your name at the top of the page
• Tap iCloud, then Hide my Email (5th row down)
• Click “Create new Address” and Apple will generate a disposable email for you that will then forward to your personal inbox. If you don’t like the email address, you can click “Use Different Address” that will then generate a new email address.
• After selecting an email address, you can then label your address and make a note to remember what you created it for

Android

• Download the Temp Mail app from the Google Play store for free.
• You can instantly generate an email address.

 

Use your email provider

Some email providers have different ways to create a throwaway email.

Gmail

Gmail doesn’t offer a way to create a disposable email, but you can use a trick to separate your unwanted or “spam” emails when signing up on any given app or website.

• When you’re prompted to provide your email and don’t want to give your real Gmail address, add a + sign to the end of your email. You can also include a note (IE: +rewardsprogram) to designate what you’re signing up for. So instead of yourname123@gmail.com you can use yourname123+@gmail.com or yourname123+rewardsprogram@gmail.com.
• Emails to your alias address will still go to your inbox, but now you’ll be able to differentiate them.
• If you open an email and click the little down carrot next to “to me,” you’ll see if the email came to your alias Gmail.
• If you notice emails being sent to your alias Gmail account from other websites, you’ll be able to tell who sold your information and who you should unsubscribe from or block.
• If you want to separate out these emails or are getting too much spam, you can create a Gmail filter:
  1. In the search bar above your inbox, click the toolbar on the right to “Show search options”
  2. Enter your alias Gmail address (IE yourname123+rewardsprogram@gmail.com) into the “To” field
  3. Click Create filter

Yahoo

Members of Yahoo Mail Plus are able to create up to 500 disposable emails for free. If you don’t see the option in your account, you may not be signed up for Yahoo Mail Plus.

• Click the Settings icon and click More Settings
• Click Mailboxes.
• Click Create next to “Disposable email address.”
• In the “Set base name” field, enter an available basename
  *IMPORTANT: Once this is set it can’t be changed.
• Click Next
• Add a keyword and a description (optional)
• Click Save

Sending an email with a Yahoo disposable email:

• Click Compose
• Click the More icon next to your email address
• Select the disposable email address you’d like to use

Outlook

You can create “alias” email addresses using your existing Outlook account.

Emails using your “alias” address will still go to your inbox, but you’ll have more privacy and won’t be giving your personal email address each time you sign up.

• Go to Add an alias (Sign in to your Microsoft account, if prompted)
• Under Add an alias, do one of the following:
  • Create a new Outlook.com email address and add it as an alias
  • Add an existing email address as an alias
• Select Add alias.
• An alias or email address can only contain letters, numbers, dot (.), underscore (_) or dash/hyphen (-). Spaces and other special characters aren’t allowed.

Send email from a different alias:

• In the compose window, select From and choose which email address you want to use

 

Create a new email address just for spam

If you don’t want to use an alias and want to create a new inbox altogether, you can always use a platform like Gmail or Yahoo to create a new email address. Be sure you don’t give any real personal information like your name or birthday when signing up for this account.

Related: How to stop the never-ending stream of spam emails

 

If you’re serious about getting a longer-term, more secure email account where you can control spam like you’ve never done before, read on…

 

Create a private and secure email address

The best way to keep your emails private is to use an encrypted email server. We’ve narrowed down our top three choices here to protect your privacy whether you want to keep your existing email address or create a new and completely safe one.

Our #1 pick StartMail is backed by the most stringent privacy laws in the world, and they use their own servers so they can’t be put out of business.

Features

• You get unlimited, anonymous aliases and burner emails. This feature protects your main email address from spam and phishing attacks. So when you’re giving your email to a company but want to protect your identity, StartMail can generate a shareable alias email, so people can’t sell your information. And they can be deleted at any time.
• You can send a password-protected message with a link to your private email that can be accessed for up to 28 days. That means the recipient of your email will receive a link and an option to enter that password just to view the email.
• Malicious link protection allows you to see full links before clicking them and putting your device in harm’s way.

After testing out StartMail, our favorite feature is how easy it is to use and how clean the interface is. With just one simple click, your email can be encrypted or require a password for viewing.  The password feature is important because it means you can send secure emails to users who don’t use encryption.

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Have you ever created a disposable email address?  How has it helped you?  Comment below!