Have you ever been asked to share your email address to get a discount or other offer? People are becoming more aware of the dangers involved when giving out their real email addresses.
Tips To Help Avoid Spam in Your Inbox
By not providing your personal email address, you can avoid getting spam, junk mail, malicious email and other unwanted content delivered to your personal inbox.
Try a Disposable Email Service
A disposable email address is an email address that you can use once or just temporarily when you need to provide an email address when ordering online, signing up for a service, filling out a form — or any other time you’re asked to provide an email address but you don’t want to use your personal email.
Most disposable email services are free to use or offer free and paid versions. Here are four that I recommend.
TrashMail
TrashMail is simple and straightforward. The email you receive will be forwarded to your personal email address or any address you choose. You can set a limit on the number of messages that are received and the number of days before the disposable address will stop forwarding messages.
10 Minute Mail
As the name implies, 10 Minute Mail lets you obtain a temporary email address for 10 minutes. You can send, read and reply to emails during that time, and the site allows you to receive emails with attachments. The address will expire after 10 minutes. However, there is an option of extending the timer for an additional 10 minutes if you need more time.
Maildrop
Maildrop lets you select your own temporary email address, or you can use one the site provides.
According to Maildrop, it permits plain text or HTML messages. It doesn’t allow for attachments, so any email attachment will be removed. All messages must be less than 500k in size.
To quote Maildrop: “An inbox can hold at most 10 messages, and any inbox which does not receive a message within 24 hours will be automatically cleared.”
Maildrop also uses a spam filter, so most junk mail will not come through. Maildrop has no sign up, there is no password associated with the account, no security and no privacy. It is strictly a temporary email to use quickly and be done with.
Mail Poof
Mail Poof also allows you to choose an address, or it will assign one to you.
When you visit the homepage, you can choose an email address you would like to use or click the button that says “random,” and a unique, email address will be generated for you to use.
The address will remain active for as long as you need, it but emails are deleted after 24 hours.
When you receive an email message, you can download it to your computer if you need to save it. Mail Poof does not permanently store any messages on its system.
Use an Alternate or Alias Email Address
Alternate and alias email addresses are completely different from disposable email addresses.
An alternate email address is an email account that you set up and use strictly for whatever you wish: online ordering, registrations, form filling and other transactions you conduct online but do not want to use your private email.
To set up an alternate email address, you use a free service such as Gmail or Outlook.com. Then you can use that account any time you have to provide an email address but don’t want to use your private, personal email. You can create an alternate email address by signing up for a new account with any free email provider.
An alias email address is an additional email address associated with your regular email account. An alias uses the same inbox, contact list, and account settings as your primary email address.
Gmail allows you to use a period or a plus sign to create an alias. For example, if your real Gmail address is [email protected] you could use [email protected]. You can insert the period anywhere in the username field and you can use as many periods as you like so you could use [email protected] or my…[email protected].
Any email sent to the alias email addresses will be delivered to your main account.
Here’s a tip: When you set up an alias email address, customize it for the site where you will use it. You could use the website name somewhere in the address: [email protected].
When using an alias, you may want to set up a message rule so that messages sent to the alias addresses are automatically filtered into a folder other than your inbox. You can create a folder with the alias email address’s name and then set up a message rule so that all email sent to that address is automatically sent to that folder. This keeps your inbox clean.
Gmail also has an option to add another email address to use when sending messages. This would allow you to compose a message in your main account but use a different “sent from” address.
To do this, log in to your Gmail account. Open the settings menu and then click “accounts and import.” Under “Send mail as,” select add another email address. In the window that opens, type the email address you would like to use and check the box that says “Treat as an alias” Then click the “Next step” button.
Depending on the email account you choose, you may need to enter your server information and password.
The account verification window will open, and an email will be sent to the email address you provided. The email will contain a confirmation code that you must enter.
Once the account has been confirmed, you will be able to choose that account in the “From” field when sending messages.
Final Thought
There are numerous ways to protect your private email account. Just choose the one that works best for you and enjoy a life free from spam.
