What is an email mask?
Definition
An email mask is a unique, random email address that forwards to your real inbox, so you can sign up for apps and sites without giving them your actual address.
- Category
- Privacy
- Also called
- masked email, email alias, hide my email
- Last updated
An email mask (also called an alias or relay address) sits between a website and your real inbox. You give the site the random address. Messages sent to it are forwarded to you, and you can usually reply without revealing your real address.
How it works in practice
Apple's Hide My Email is a well-documented example. It generates unique, random addresses that forward to your personal inbox. Each address is unique to you. If you pick the hide option in Sign in with Apple, the address uses the domain @privaterelay.appleid.com, and only the app or website you created the account with can email you through it. Apple says it doesn't read the messages, apart from standard spam filtering, and deletes them from its relay servers after delivery, usually within seconds.
Other email and privacy services offer similar aliases, with their own rules.
Why use one
Your email address is the key that links your accounts. A site that has it can sell it, leak it in a breach or match it to your profile elsewhere. With a different mask per site, a leak exposes only a throwaway address, and if one starts getting spam, you can switch it off without touching the rest.
What a mask doesn't do
It hides your address from the site, not your activity from the mask provider. It also doesn't help with accounts you already created using your real email. Those stay linked to it.
How to protect yourself
- 1
Use a different mask for each new sign-up
On an iPhone, open Settings, tap your name, then iCloud, then Hide My Email (an iCloud+ feature) to create addresses.
- 2
Choose the hide option in Sign in with Apple
When an app offers it, pick Hide My Email instead of sharing your address. You can review which apps use it under Settings, your name, Sign in with Apple.
- 3
Check where your real email is already listed
Old accounts and breaches may already tie your email to your name. Serus finds where your personal data is exposed and removes what can be removed, and alerts you when your email shows up in breach data.
- 4
Turn off a mask that gets spam
That tells you which site shared the address, and ends the mail.
See where your personal data is exposed
Serus finds it on data brokers and people-search sites and removes it.
Frequently asked
Is an email mask the same as an alias?
Mostly. Both are extra addresses that forward to your main inbox. "Mask" usually means a random, per-site address.
Can I reply from an email mask?
With Apple's Hide My Email, yes. You can read and respond directly to emails sent to the address, and your personal address stays private.
Does Apple read my masked email?
Apple says it doesn't read or process the content, except for the spam filtering required to stay a trusted email provider.
Sources
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