There are four common ways to sign up somewhere without giving away your main address. They often get lumped together, but they work in fundamentally different ways.
1. Plus addressing
Many providers treat everything after a plus sign as a comment: name+shop@example.com arrives in the mailbox of name@example.com.
Strengths: Available instantly, nothing to set up, you can filter on the suffix and see the source of every message.
Limits: The part before the plus stays visible — anyone passing the address on can simply cut the plus off and use your real address. Some forms also reject the plus sign.
So: Good for sorting mail and identifying sources. No protection against someone who is trying.
2. Alias on your own domain
If you own a domain you can create any number of real addresses pointing at the same mailbox. With a catch-all you do not even have to create them in advance.
Strengths: Every address stands on its own. If one gets abused you switch off exactly that one and everything else keeps running. From outside, no connection between them is visible.
Limits: Requires your own domain, so cost and a little administration. And if the domain is small and unknown, mail from it is more likely to land in spam.
So: The cleanest solution for anything you intend to keep.
3. Forwarding through a service
A third party gives you an address that forwards to your real mailbox. We offer this too — with confirmation of the destination address and an unsubscribe link in every forwarded message.
Strengths: No domain needed. The sender never learns your real address. Switching off takes one click.
Limits: You depend on the service. If it shuts down, every sign-up running through it is affected. And forwarding brings a technical problem: it breaks the SPF check, because the forwarding server is not the original sender — some messages end up in spam as a result.
So: A good middle ground if you have no domain but want more than a throwaway.
4. Disposable address
An address you invent, which receives mail immediately and disappears shortly afterwards. No password, no registration.
Strengths: The fastest option there is. Nothing to set up, nothing to manage, no trace.
Limits: Not recoverable and not protected — anyone who knows the name reads along. With us the content is deleted after seven days at the latest. And the domains of such services sit on block lists, so some forms reject them.
So: Right for anything one-off, wrong for anything with an account and a password.
Side by side
| Plus | Alias | Forwarding | Disposable | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Real address hidden | no | yes | yes | yes |
| Usable long term | yes | yes | yes | no |
| Individually switchable | awkward | yes | yes | n/a |
| Own domain required | no | yes | no | no |
| Accepted by forms | mostly | yes | mostly | often not |
| Effort | none | medium | low | none |
A workable split
- Bank, government, anything contractual: main address, nothing else.
- Accounts you want to keep: alias on your own domain, or forwarding as a substitute.
- Newsletters and shops: plus addressing is enough if you only want to sort.
- One-off downloads, Wi-Fi portals, trials: disposable address.
Exactly where the line between points 2 and 4 runs is mapped out in more detail in a separate post.