*Unlimited* Disposable Email Aliases
(to vote for unlimited alias, visit https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/284483/suggestions/45394132)
Startmail explains it perfectly. They offer unlimited disposable aliases, which expire within a given amount of time. They also offer custom aliases which can be saved and used indefinitely.
It is the disposable alias which will help protect privacy, when submiting an email to an untrusted recipient. After all, how much privacy do we have if our fixed emails become the foundation for building and selling our marketing profiles, just as is done by gmail. We limit personal activity virtual trails by disposing of aliases for casual uses. But, unlike custom aliases, which build on our identifiable original email address, disposable aliases divert from our true email identity by utilizing a sub-domain created for this specific purpose, such as: xxx@tda.protonmail.com (tda = temporary disposable alias)
You avoid abuse by limiting disposable alias creation on a daily basis. Perhaps 5 max per day.
Here is Startmail's explanation:
https://support.startmail.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/3/0/aliases
The Blur service (by Abine) also offers a "masked mail" free service. But their service is not encrypted:
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Keith Bohler commented
This sounds like a great feature, however, I'd probably get a Proton Disposable email server that is separate from the regular protonmail.com ones. As someone mentioned, email blacklisting is definitely a possibility. Not to mention, I'd personally love to see the ability to have at least 1 other @protonmail.ch or @protonmail.com alias for free accounts. Sounds like work, but would make the service even more flexible than it currently is.
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M. commented
Hi,
When I do not want to give my email @ I use this service:
http://jetable.org/en/index
Maybe helpful for your purpose ?
M. -
Anonymous commented
Somehow spammers have gotten their hands on my default .ch address, and that's why I would like the ability to disable it.
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Ines commented
This request is a dupe of the following (more votes):
https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/284483-feedback/suggestions/13006611-alias-characters -
Ines commented
Hi,
As a recent convert to Proton (paid) from Tutanota one of the attractive features of Proton was the ability to create an alias by usage of an additional alias-stub to the underlying base email address.
However, I am finding websites are not accepting email addresses that use the "+" in the form field.
Now I understand protonmail may take the stance that this is not their problem. However, I'd conversely argue that as I have now since read in forums elsewhere that this issue has been seen before then I conclude the protonmail design needs to be flexible and change its approach. If you can't have this work everytime then the functionality is somewhat pointless.
I see via your signup page that you don't permit the usage of the dash "-" character in email addresses. This suggests this character is un-utilised in base addresses; hence, could this character be considered in place of the "+" character for this purpose?
Personally, I feel the dash "-" is far more desirable as it is less indicatory of the underlying email address from human eyes than with the usage of the plus "+" character.
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Ines commented
Hi,
As a recent convert to Proton (paid) from Tutanota one of the attractive features of Proton was the ability to create an alias by usage of an additional alias-stub to the underlying base email address.
However, I am finding websites are not accepting email addresses that use the "+" in the form field.
Now I understand protonmail may take the stance that this is not their problem. However, I'd conversely argue that as I have now since read in forums elsewhere that this issue has been seen before then I conclude the protonmail design needs to be flexible and change its approach. If you can't have this work everytime then the functionality is somewhat pointless.
I see via your signup page that you don't permit the usage of the dash "-" character in email addresses. This suggests this character is un-utilised in base addresses; hence, could this character be considered in place of the "+" character for this purpose?
Personally, I feel the dash "-" is far more desirable as it is less indicatory of the underlying email address from human eyes than with the usage of the plus "+" character.
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Ines commented
Hi,
As a recent convert to Proton (paid) from Tutanota one of the attractive features of Proton was the ability to have use an alias by usage of an additional alias-stub to the email address.
However, I am finding websites are not accepting email addresses that use the "+" in the form field.
Now I understand protonmail may take the stance that this is not their problem. However, I'd conversely argue that as I have now since read in forums elsewhere that this issue has been seen before then I conclude the protonmail design needs to be flexible and change its approach. If you can't have this work everytime then the functionality is somewhat pointless.
I see via your signup page that you don't permit the usage of the dash "-" character in email addresses. This suggests this character is un-utilised in base addresses; hence, could this character be considered in place of the "+" character for this purpose?
Personally, I feel the dash "-" is far more desirable as it is less indicatory of the underlying email address from human eyes than with the usage of the plus "+" character.
Lastly, I realise the following isn't a bug, but it is still on-topic. With such a design as the alias-stub, would it be possible to have the sender continue to be the same sender email address with the alias stub? Current functionality in proton sees this removed. An example implementation that comes to mind is how Yahoo achieve this.
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LUH3417 commented
Alfonso, the idea is to use one encrypted service, not multiple services divided by their features. If ProtonMail offers changeable aliases, no one will need to use accounts from additional providers. It's great that no one can read our messages. But if marketing groups compile your account registrations, purchasing and other habits via your one fixed email address into a comprehensive, shared profile of you, you have still lost your privacy.
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Alfonso commented
If startmail.com and mailinator exists, I actually don't find the need for this. I find more hassle here getting protonmail into blacklists...
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buggy commented
As mentioned albine blur method is pretty cool. I haven't used it, but it seems popular
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Anonymous commented
Yeah, and quite some site don't consider email address containing "+" sign as valid. I definitely think the best way would be to have a predetermined list of alias sign activable on demand in the settings. Like + - <> or wathever
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J. commented
Just copy what Abine has done. They offer unlimited masked email addresses that forward to your real address. You turn them on/off at will or delete them whenever you want. You can have a unique email address for each website!
I think this feature would be great for ProtonMail.
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Anonymous commented
I use an alias now for automated mail, and my email address for people I see and meet in person. I like how I can disable and create a new alias in icloud but really anything that hides my email address is gold.
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Tony commented
This is a great idea. I'd like flexibility in setting the disposal time. 2 weeks might be too short while 2 months might be perfect
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anon commented
This idea offered by the ProtonMail Team, https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/284483-feedback/suggestions/7158454-implement-http-www-techopedia-com-definition-169 would give unlimited disposable aliases (as nym server pseudonyms) if it is implemented like other nym servers.
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Andy Bolstridge commented
I like this idea too - similar to Mailinator,. where you have a obfuscated email address to hand out to others, but the emails end up in your email box.
So I can have a dave.jones@protonmail account, but any emails sent to kd7y346egd@protonmail.com would also end up in the dave.jones inbox - the benefit is really to allow more privacy for all those websites you don't want to trust with your real name or real email account name.
i don't care for linking multiple account names to 1 box here, just an anonymizing redirect.
It would be even better to be able to discard an existing alias and re-generate a new one too.
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asdoiuhfaisdf commented
1. Being able to receive mails in different tabs for different aliases
and/or
2. Color separation for aliases
This way you can't accidentally reply with a wrong alias.
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Anonymous commented
Using an alias, which also uses a unique sub-domain, prevents marketing corporations from building databases through multiple resource collection, to create profiles of your commercial and personal activities. Just adding an + retains the basic email address, which can be linked to the limited aliases currently allowed.
Disposable aliases are distinct form the customizable aliases, which are limited in number, and based on current policy, cannot be modified.
Limiting the number of actively disposable aliases is acceptable, as long as any alias created can be disposed of and replaced with a new alias. In this case, unlimited does not refer to the number of simultaneously active aliases. It refers to the an unlimited number of replacement aliases, once a disposable alias has been deleted.
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Anonymous commented
It would be great to generate a brand new random email address for every service with which a user signs up. However this would only work if a user is able to reactivate the temporary email address to do password recovery. Otherwise we would need to prevent password loss by reusing passwords, not good.
It would be easy to rediscover which temporary email was used for a service and reactivate it by searching an inbox for the service's "email address verification email" and reading the "to address".
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g pres commented
II think using email alias is a great idea although i think we could improve it more.
Using the + sign is problematic since it allows users to understand your original email.
The sign we should use should be something that is already used in the name of the email.
For example I think dot . is a better sign.
If someone uses the email name.tes@protonmail.com then the third party can't know if name.tes is alias or not