Protect Your Privacy With Disposable Email

By Meemaw

It happens all the time. You go to a new site to shop or look for information, and you are asked to register and give them an email address. Invariably, the next thing that happens is that your Inbox (and/or Spam folder) is filled with unwanted email. Oh, how we wish we could figure out a solution!

Forum Member Phil submitted the following tip in the Tips & Tricks section of the forum.

"You want something and you need to provide an email addy, which will provide a key to whatever. Use this, and receive messages for one hour. Then bin it.

https://www.guerrillamail.com/

Guerrilla Mail gives you a disposable email address. There is no need to register, simply visit Guerrilla Mail and a random address will be given. You can also choose your own address.

You can give your email address to whoever you do not trust. You can view the email on Guerrilla Mail, click on any confirmation link, then delete it. Any future spam sent to the disposable email will be zapped by Guerrilla Mail, never reaching your mailbox, keeping your mailbox safe and clean."

This is an important subject for our tech-savvy members (and even for those less-savvy), so I did a little more investigation. Googling 'disposable email', I see that Google says there are over 13,400,000 results. The following providers are just a few of them.

Mailinator - This one is a little different, because you decide on the address when you need it. You just put "@mailinator" after whatever name you think up, without first going to the mailinator site and doing anything. If I am registering on a new site and it asks for an email, I can just think of something like m33mqw for my email address, and combine it with the @mailinator to make "m33mqw@mailinator.com". After I register on the new site with that email, I can go to Mailinator and put in that email address, and if I received any spam emails, they will be there.

AirMail On this site is a button that says "Get my temporary address". Once you click it, an address pops up in the box (for example, xhsdss@tryalert.com) and you can begin using it. The window also changes to the Inbox for that address, and you get a message that welcomes you to AirMail, explaining how it works. Your email address and inbox only last for 24 hours after you close the browser window.

10 Minute Mail Like the others, you click on a link and get an email address you can provide at that site you want to use. The email address expires after 10 minutes, but you can click a link that says "Give me 10 more minutes!" Unlike the others, you can reply to emails that you get. However, since you are probably just getting spam, you won't need to reply.

YOPMail stands for Your Own Protection Mail. Anywhere you sign up, you can give your email address as @yopmail.com and any spam or junk emails will be sent to that address. You can go check your inbox later, at your leisure. You can go to YOPmail and put in a name for your email inbox, then sign up on that new site, OR you can just give the address at the new site first (like Mailinator). If you can't think of anything, you can always click the random email address generator and have a name generated. With YOPMail, messages are kept for 8 days, then deleted.

FakeInbox The Home Page for this site is really easy: One button says "Create random email address" and one has a box where you can enter your random email address in order to check your inbox. The generated address lasts for 60 minutes, and you can click a button that says "Give me 60 full minutes again" or one that says "Delete email address". The only thing that seems to be missing from this one is any kind of explanation (how long does the inbox exist? Can you check it next week, or does the whole thing disappear after an hour?) However, it's pretty easy to do.

Dispostable This one has a very basic Home Page. You are told to pick a name and add "@dispostable" on the end. In addition, you are given a random email address, just in case you can't decide. Give it out on your new site and that's it. Dispostable deletes emails after 3 days.

TempMail starts you out with an inbox and a random email listed at the top for you to use.

It is at this site that I found a FAQ page with nice, concise reasons for using disposable email. I'm sure each site has them, but some are more easily found. From their site:

What is the difference of disposable mail from the usual email?
- It does not require registration;
- It is completely anonymous:
- Your personal details, address, IP address are removed after the period of mailbox use is over.
- Messages are delivered instantaneously;
- E-mail address is generated automatically. You do not have to manually pick up a free host name.
- Mailbox is fully protected from spam, hacking and exploits.

ThrowAwayMail is very simple to use, too. The inbox and random address are already there for you to use. If you decide you want a different email address, you can click on "Generate new email address" and one will be generated.

Summary

When I think of all the spam I get, having a disposable email for those questionable sites (that just have to have an email address) makes really good sense. This helps maintain more anonymity, and keeps my actual email inbox from being swamped with junk. Many thanks to Forum Member Phil for posting this item. I know everyone appreciated it!

Of course, there are many more sites offering disposable email accounts. We've barely only scratched the surface with the ones mentioned here. Perform an internet search for "disposable email" and give some of the other services a try, too. You'll do a big service to your privacy ... as well as your Inbox.