Throwaway Email Addresses in 2026: Temp Inboxes and Aliases

A throwaway email address is one you give out instead of your real one. There are two kinds. A temporary inbox needs no sign-up and disappears within hours, so it's only good for a one-time code. An alias from a service like iCloud+ Hide My Email, Firefox Relay or DuckDuckGo forwards to your real inbox until you switch it off. For almost everything, I'd use an alias.

The urge usually hits at a sign-up form. You want the 15% off code or the free template, and you don't want the six emails a week that come after it. That's fair. The trouble is that a truly disposable address can't receive the receipt or the password reset you'll need in three months. Below I'll cover which kind to use when, how to set up each of the main alias services step by step, how to pick one, and what to check before you switch an alias off.

Throwaway email options at a glance

When a temporary inbox is fine, and when it isn't

Temporary inbox sites give you a random address the moment you open the page. No account, no password. That's the appeal and the problem. Take Mailinator's public inboxes: its own documentation says messages are readable and deletable by anyone, auto-delete after a few hours, and may arrive with attachments stripped. It tells people not to send anything sensitive there.

So I only reach for one when two things are true: I need a single email right now, and I'll never need that account again. Reading one article behind a sign-up wall, say.

Now picture Megan, who runs a small design studio in Denver, booking a Saturday letterpress workshop with a temporary address because she's tired of studio supply promos. The confirmation arrives, and it feels done. Two weeks later the workshop moves across town, or she needs the $185 receipt for her books, or the site wants a code to let her sign in. That mail goes to an inbox that no longer exists, or that a stranger can read. For anything involving money, travel, health, work or account recovery, use an address you control.

Try unsubscribing before you go throwaway

Half the reason people want a throwaway address is a sender they already gave the real one to. Before you burn an address, use the unsubscribe link. In the US, the FTC's CAN-SPAM guide says commercial email has to explain clearly how to opt out, and the sender has to honor your request within 10 business days. Legitimate brands follow that. If a sender keeps mailing you two weeks after you opted out, that's when an alias you can switch off earns its place.

How to get a throwaway email alias

An alias is a separate address that forwards to the inbox you already read. The site never sees your real address, and if it starts sending junk or leaks your details, you switch that one alias off and nothing else changes. Here's what the main services offer, from their own pricing and help pages:

On iPhone or Mac: Hide My Email

If you already pay for iCloud+, you have this. Apple's iCloud+ plans start at $0.99 a month for 50 GB, and every paid tier includes Hide My Email. Apple's iPhone guide lays out the steps:

1. Open Settings and tap your name.
2. Tap iCloud, then Hide My Email.
3. Tap Create New Address and follow the prompts.
4. Copy the address and use it on the sign-up form.

It's quicker in the moment: when a site in Safari asks for your email, tap the field and choose Hide My Email above the keyboard. On iCloud.com you can give each address a label and a note, which I'd always do. A list of random addresses means nothing six months later. "Couch order, return open till Nov. 30" does. Apple also says you can send and reply from these addresses in Mail on iCloud.com.

Firefox Relay, step by step

Mozilla's Relay pricing page says everyone gets 5 email masks for free, while its help article says free users can create up to 50. Mozilla's own pages disagree, so I'd plan around 5 and treat anything more as a bonus. To make a mask, the help article describes this:

1. Go to relay.firefox.com and sign in with a Mozilla account.
2. Select Generate new mask.
3. Click the copy icon next to the new mask.
4. Paste the mask into the email field of the site you're signing up for.

In Firefox, once you're signed in and Relay masks are turned on, the browser can suggest a mask right in the email field: click Use an email mask. With the Relay extension, a Relay icon appears in email fields; if it doesn't, right-click the field and choose Generate New mask.

Relay Premium adds unlimited masks, replies from a mask, blocking of promotional emails while still letting receipts through, and your own Relay subdomain so you can make up a mask on the spot, like shop@yourname.mozmail.com. Mozilla lists the United States among the countries where Premium is offered, but the Premium page currently shows Join the waitlist rather than a price, so you may not be able to buy it right away.

DuckDuckGo Email Protection, step by step

DuckDuckGo's service is free and lets you create unlimited private addresses, which forward to the inbox you already use, whether that's Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail or Proton. It also removes several kinds of hidden email trackers on the way through. DuckDuckGo's help pages describe the setup:

1. On your phone: in the DuckDuckGo browser app for iPhone or Android, open Settings and select Email Protection. On a computer: go to duckduckgo.com/email in the DuckDuckGo browser for Mac or Windows, or in Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Brave or Opera with the DuckDuckGo extension installed.
2. Follow the prompts to create your personal duck.com address and enter the inbox you want mail forwarded to.
3. When a sign-up form asks for an email, let DuckDuckGo autofill a randomly generated private address, or generate one from the app or extension's main menu, or from the Autofill tab of Email Protection settings.

Use the private addresses for sign-ups and keep your personal duck.com address for people. When you reply, DuckDuckGo sends it from the Duck Address that got the original email. To shut one off, DuckDuckGo says you can open Passwords in its browser menu on iPhone, Android or Mac, or click the Deactivate button in the banner at the top of any email sent to that address. The same steps turn it back on, and private addresses don't expire on their own.

SimpleLogin and Proton Pass

SimpleLogin's free plan gives you 10 aliases, one mailbox to forward to and replies from the alias. Premium adds unlimited aliases, more mailboxes and your own domains. Proton Pass lets you create up to 10 aliases on Proton Free and Mail Plus, right from the password manager when you fill out a sign-up form. Replies go out from the alias, so your real address stays hidden. If you already keep logins in Proton Pass, having the alias saved next to the password saves a lot of "which email did I use here?" later.

Which alias service should I use?

My rule: use the one that's already on the device you sign up from. The best alias service is the one that shows up in the email field without you thinking about it. Here's how that plays out for a few people.

• Kayla, a junior at Ohio State, on an iPhone with the free 5 GB of iCloud. She doesn't pay for iCloud+, so Hide My Email isn't there. DuckDuckGo is free with unlimited addresses, which suits the student discount sites, food delivery promos and campus event sign-ups she's handing out every week. Her osu.edu address stays for professors, and her real Gmail goes on internship applications, because a recruiter at a Columbus insurance company emailing her on a Friday afternoon is exactly the mail she can't miss.
• Megan, the Denver studio owner, on a Mac and iPhone with a 200 GB iCloud+ plan. She already pays for it, and Safari offers Hide My Email in every sign-up field. That's her answer. She labels each address with the vendor's name the moment she makes it.
• Lauren, a marketing director at an Austin software company, who works in Firefox. She signs up for competitors' newsletters and webinars to watch how they market, and she'd rather they didn't see her company address on their list. Relay's in-field suggestion makes a mask per competitor in a click. Five masks is tight for that, so if Premium opens up, it's worth it for her.
• Anyone who already lives in a password manager. If that's Proton Pass, use its aliases, because the alias, the login and the site are saved together.

I'd only run two services side by side if there's a reason, like a work browser and a personal phone. Spread aliases across four services and you'll forget where half of them live.

Before and after: one address for everything

Here's what Kayla's sign-ups look like without aliases, and what they look like once she sorts them.

Every form gets: kayla.[lastname]@gmail.com
Result: internship replies buried under 40 promos a week,
and one leaked list means spam to the address on her résumé.

Professors and advisors:   her osu.edu address
Internships and recruiters: kayla.[lastname]@gmail.com
Shops, apps, campus deals:  a private duck.com address per site,
                            each saved with its login
Wi-Fi sign-in page at a coffee shop: a temporary inbox, never used again

Nothing about the after version is complicated. It just puts each kind of mail where it belongs, so the one email that matters doesn't sit under a pile of coupons.

Gmail's plus trick: a label, not a disguise

Gmail lets you add a plus sign and any word before the @, and Google says mail to that version still lands in your normal inbox. So yourname+shop@gmail.com reaches you. It's free and needs no setup, but it isn't private: your real address is right there in front of the plus. I'd use it to sort mail, not to hide.

To send everything that arrives at a plus address straight to a label:

1. In Gmail, click Show search options in the search box.
2. Under To, type the plus address, for example yourname+shop@gmail.com.
3. Click Create filter.
4. Choose what Gmail should do, such as Skip the Inbox or Apply the label, then click Create filter again.

When an alias isn't working

• The site rejects the address. Some sign-up forms won't accept addresses from alias services. Try a different service's alias, or decide whether the account is important enough for your real address.
• Mail isn't arriving. Check that the alias is still active, then check spam in your real inbox. Forwarded mail can land there.
• You hit your limit. Free Relay and the 10-alias plans at SimpleLogin and Proton cap how many you can have. Delete aliases for sites you've left, or move the busiest ones to a service with unlimited addresses.
• A reply came from your real address. If you answered from your normal mail app instead of the alias service's reply path, the sender now has your real address. Send a test reply before you rely on an alias for customer support.

Mozilla's own advice is worth repeating: its help article suggests giving your real address to your bank, your doctor and your lawyer, and using it for boarding passes and concert tickets. I agree. Masks are for the sites you're not sure about.

Before you switch an alias off

Turning off an alias is the whole point, but do it in the right order. Apple says a deactivated Hide My Email address stops forwarding mail to you, and Proton says a deleted alias can't be recovered.

1. Check what the address still gets: receipts, renewals, password resets, support replies.
2. If you want to keep the account, change its email to a new alias or your real address first.
3. Confirm the new address works by triggering a test email, such as a password reset.
4. Then deactivate the old alias. Deactivate rather than delete where you can, so you can turn it back on.

Say Megan switches off a furniture store alias on a Monday to stop the daily sale emails, while a $640 chair return she started the week before is still open. The refund confirmation goes nowhere. Finish the open order first, then switch it off.

Habits that keep aliases easy to live with

• One alias per site. If one starts getting spam, you know where it came from and only lose that one.
• Label every alias the moment you make it.
• Save the alias with the password in your password manager, so you never have to guess which address you used.
• Send a test reply before relying on an alias for something like customer support.
• Keep a real, recognizable address for clients, employers and anyone who needs to reach you for years. Our guide on creating a professional email address covers that side.