Email Aliasing
Protects against the following threat(s):
An email aliasing service allows you to easily generate a new email address for every website you register for. The email aliases you generate are then forwarded to an email address of your choosing, hiding both your "main" email address and the identity of your email provider. True email aliasing is better than plus addressing commonly used and supported by many providers, which allows you to create aliases like yourname+[anythinghere]@example.com, because websites, advertisers, and tracking networks can trivially remove anything after the + sign. Organizations like the IAB require that advertisers normalize email addresses so that they can be correlated and tracked, regardless of users' privacy wishes.
Email aliasing can also act as a safeguard in case your email provider ever ceases operation. In that scenario, you can easily re-route your aliases to a new email address. In turn, however, you are placing trust in the aliasing service to continue functioning.
Using a dedicated email aliasing service also has a number of benefits over a catch-all alias on a custom domain:
- Aliases can be turned on and off individually when you need them, preventing websites from emailing you randomly.
- Replies are sent from the alias address, shielding your real email address.
They also have a number of benefits over "temporary email" services:
- Aliases are permanent and can be turned on again if you need to receive something like a password reset.
- Emails are sent to your trusted mailbox rather than stored by the alias provider.
- Temporary email services typically have public mailboxes which can be accessed by anyone who knows the address, while aliases are private to you.
Our email aliasing recommendations are providers that allow you to create aliases on domains they control, as well as on your own custom domain(s) for a modest yearly fee. They can also be self-hosted if you want maximum control. However, using a custom domain can have privacy-related drawbacks: If you are the only person using your custom domain, your actions can be easily tracked across websites simply by looking at the domain name in the email address and ignoring everything before the at (@) sign.
Using an aliasing service requires trusting both your email provider and your aliasing provider with your unencrypted messages. Some providers mitigate this slightly with automatic PGP encryption1, which reduces the number of parties you need to trust from two to one by encrypting incoming emails before they are delivered to your final mailbox provider.
addy.io
addy.io lets you create 10 domain aliases on a shared domain for free, or unlimited "standard" aliases.
The number of shared aliases (which end in a shared domain like @addy.io) that you can create is limited to 10 on addy.io's free plan, 50 on their $1/month plan and unlimited on the $4/month plan (billed $3 for a year). You can create unlimited standard aliases which end in a domain like @[username].addy.io or a custom domain on paid plans. However, as previously mentioned, this can be detrimental to privacy because people can trivially tie your standard aliases together based on the domain name alone. They are useful where a shared domain might be blocked by a service. Securitum audited addy.io in September 2023 and no significant vulnerabilities were identified.
Notable free features:
- 10 Shared Aliases
- Unlimited Standard Aliases
- No Outgoing Replies
- 1 Recipient Mailbox
- Automatic PGP Encryption1
If you cancel your subscription, you will still enjoy the features of your paid plan until the billing cycle ends. After the end of your current billing cycle, most paid features (including any custom domains) will be deactivated, paid account settings will be reverted to their defaults, and catch-all will be enabled if it was previously disabled.
SimpleLogin
SimpleLogin is a free service which provides email aliases on a variety of shared domain names, and optionally provides paid features like unlimited aliases and custom domains.
SimpleLogin was acquired by Proton AG as of April 8, 2022. If you use Proton Mail for your primary mailbox, SimpleLogin is a great choice. As both products are now owned by the same company you now only have to trust a single entity. We also expect that SimpleLogin will be more tightly integrated with Proton's offerings in the future. SimpleLogin continues to support forwarding to any email provider of your choosing. Securitum audited SimpleLogin in early 2022 and all issues were addressed.
You can link your SimpleLogin account in the settings with your Proton account. If you have the Proton Unlimited plan or any multi-user Proton plan, you will have SimpleLogin Premium for free.
Notable free features:
- 10 Shared Aliases
- Unlimited Replies
- 1 Recipient Mailbox
- Automatic PGP Encryption1 is only available on paid plans
When your subscription ends, all aliases you created will still be able to receive and send emails. However, you cannot create any new aliases that would exceed the free plan limit, nor can you add a new domain, directory, or mailbox.
Criteria
Please note we are not affiliated with any of the providers we recommend. In addition to our standard criteria, we evaluate email aliasing providers to the same standard as our regular email provider criteria where applicable. We suggest you familiarize yourself with this list before choosing an email service, and conduct your own research to ensure the provider you choose is the right choice for you.
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