In my line of work (yes, I just referred to blogging as a “line of work”), there are times when I want to get more info on a product or service but doing so requires me to enter an email address. However, knowing how annoying these companies can be once I’ve provided them with this info, I’d rather not give them the real thing — or even any of my alternate addresses. That’s where I’ve found that generating a temporary email address can be a lifesaver!
The first time I ever wanted to create a temp email address, I came across Temp-Mail.org. Using this free and anonymous tool, you can create a random email address to then supply to whatever you’re signing up for.
Importantly, this isn’t like passing off a fake phone number to someone as a means of getting them off your back. Instead, you can actually receive messages to your temporary inbox on the site. That way, you can verify your email for any newly created account and no one is the wiser. Speaking of phone numbers, unlike times when I’ve tried to use VoIP numbers only to be rebuffed with an error message, I have yet to run into an issue where a form doesn’t accept my temp email address.
So what exactly do I use these burner emails for? In the past, I’ve used them to obtain quotes for services, start free trials (ones that don’t require you to enter a form of payment), and more. I’m sure that, once you put your mind to it, you could probably find uses for these one-off addresses as well.
As for the downside, well, it should be fairly obvious. Namely, if you find out that you actually want to be getting further emails from the company you signed up for using a temp address, retrieving your inbox could be difficult if not impossible. In these cases, though, you should be able to go to your profile and swap your fake address for your real one.
If you really want, Temp Mail does also offer a premium paid service where you can manage up to 10 addresses at a time and create custom domains. To me, that kind of defeats the purpose of having a burner email address in the first place, but I suppose these could also be useful in certain situations. Plus, at $60 a year, it’s not a huge expense if you do want to go that route.
However, as for me, I’ll continue utilizing one-off email addresses, closing my browser tab, and never seeing that combination of letters and numbers ever again. It’s really a beautiful solution to an ongoing problem. Then again, I do fear that the proliferation of these temp email accounts might just lead more companies to require phone numbers instead — which, as I mentioned, can be harder to fake. In the meantime though, I recommend checking out Temp Mail the next time you need a quick and easy email address solution.