Disposable email addresses can help solve the problem. By providing a different email address each time you sign up for services and keeping a record of those unique email addresses, you can tell how your information is getting to spammers.
Many disposable email addresses forward messages to your real email address. A few disposable email services make the disposable email only available for a short time.
Why Would I Use a Disposable Email Address?
The idea of disposable email address conjures up images of black hat hackers and the underworld of the internet that most of us steer away from. But there are a number of legitimate reasons you might want a disposable email address—reasons many on our Tuts+ team use them regularly. Here's a few:
You want to signup for a store loyalty card, but would rather not get emails from the store advertising new products. Use a disposable email address instead, and you'll never have to see those emails—and if the store gets hacked, your real email address won't get stolen.
You just coded an awesome web app, and want to test it thoroughly before releasing it to the wild. Get 100 disposable email addresses, use them for dummy accounts, and test away.
You want to signup for another account with a web app—perhaps you want another IFTTT account to automate a second Twitter account you run for your site. Both of those will require a different email from your default, so rather than managing another email inbox, just use a disposable email address.
You want to write a fully anonymous email to the editor of a newspaper. With paper mail, you could do this by mailing a letter without a return address from a postal drop box, but using a throwaway email address is one of the few ways to do so online today.
That's only a few of the many reasons you might consider using a disposable email address. Now, here's the apps and tips you'll need to create disposable email addresses and start using them.
How to Create a Disposable Email Address and Begin Using It
The most obvious way to create a disposable email address would be to make a new email account with Gmail, Yahoo, or any other free email service, but that's a lot of trouble for just one new email address. It'd work if you'd like one email you give away to companies, and another you use for personal communications, but if you want more accounts than that, disposable email addresses are a better option.
Here's some of the best ways to make disposable, temporary, or throwaway email addresses and how to start using them in seven popular email systems:
1. Gmail - Generate Temporary Email Address Aliases
Ever wanted to know who actually gave away your email address when you notice spam showing up in your inbox? Now you can, with custom email addresses in Gmail. Gmail doesn't offer anonymous disposable email addresses, but you can add a period anywhere in your email address, or append a plus sign to the end of your email and add any text you want after it to make a new email alias.
For example, if you were signing up for MegaCorp, Inc.'s newsletter, don't enter my.name123@gmail.com. Instead, add a plus to the end of your email and type whatever you want after it. For example, you could send an email to my.name123+megacorp@gmail.com or my.name123+456789@gmail.com.
Now, when spam mail comes, click the tiny down arrow next to To me:. It will display where the email is from, and whom it was sent to, along with other details. You can then see which email alias it was sent to. So, if you receive a promotional offer about toys and you look at who it was sent to and see my.name12.3+megacorp@gmail.com, you know who gave away your email address. The +megacorp tells you that the MegaCorp, Inc. newsletter gave away your email address. Time to unsubscribe!
Gmail Disposable Email Address
Receiving mail with a Gmail disposable email address.
These same email aliases give you a great way to automatically filter your incoming emails, even if the services you sign up for don't spam you. You could setup custom Gmail filters for each of your email aliases, and have emails from those addresses automatically archived with particular labels.
Temp MailDo note, of course, that these Gmail disposable email addresses aren't private, no more so than your normal email address. But, they're a perfect option to see how people got your email, and to automate filtering of your email no matter what list you're on.
To learn more about Gmail filters, review this tutorial:
How to Filter & Block Unwanted Emails (Spam) in Gmail
Mailinator is built on a unique concept: anyone can access any inbox, as long as you know its email address. You literally can come up with any inbox name you want (megacorpnewsletter123467, say), add @mailinator.com to the end, and use it in any email address field, say to signup for an online newsletter.
Here's how to use Mailinartor to create a disposable email address: First, go to the Mailinator website, enter the new email address, then click the green Check it box, and the inbox will open—no password required. You'll see any emails that have been sent to that address, and may even notice emails you didn't signup for if someone else has used that same email address before.
The email inbox interface works the same as you'd expect. You can read and reply to emails, download any attachments, and more. It's full-featured email, where all emails you receive are public to anyone who knows the email address.
Mailinator Disposable Email Address
Mailinator Disposable Email Address
Check any mailbox any time on Mailinator.
Mailinator isn't private at all—the address isn't tied to you. Any replies to it are public—but it is an incredibly simple way to get a disposable email address for anything you want, making it perfect for a fully anonymous email address (albeit one where any replies you may receive are public) or for testing out your new web app. You could even set up Mailinator on your own domain as an even better way to test out your own services.
3. Airmail - Randomized, Disposable Email Addresses
Airmail is another private email service that is quite similar to Mailinator, though with more privacy. You click a button, and get a random email automatically along with a unique code that lets you view any emails that address receives online without a password.
To get a new email address, just go to the Airmail site and click the Get Temporary Email button. Seconds later, an inbox view will load with your new randomly assigned email address and the unique access code in the address bar. You'll need to make note of both—or copy the URL with both codes in the address—to be able to see any emails you receive.
For example, say the email address I was randomly assigned was tutyw@grandmasmail.com, and in my browser's address bar, it showed the address as getairmail.com/tutyw/INGX. In this case, the first code is the address of the email (it does not include the randomly assigned domain name), and INGX was my unique code. In the future, to access the mailbox, just type out or copy the URL from the browser's address bar and you'll be able to access your email—though this will only work up to 24 hours after you last visited the page, after which time the emails will be deleted.
A random disposable email address in Airmail.
Another public option for a free temporary email address is MailDrop. This service provides throwaway email addresses that are cleared after 24 hours of inactivity.
To get a MailDrop email address, simply type a user name in the blank in the upper right in front of @maildrop.cc. Then, click the GO > button to see any messages sent to that email address.
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