I want a bulletproof way to give email sub-addresses, since some websites strip out special characters like + and .. I have an idea for how it could work, let’s say my email is TheTwelveYearOld@Reddit.com and I have the following:
- All emails sent to TheTwelveYearOld@ get blocked
- I specify a suffix that would be used instead of
+, perhaps “From” - I whitelist phrases that go after “From”: TheTwelveYearOldFromDoorDash, TheTwelveYearOldFromGoogle, TheTwelveYearOldFromReddit
Are there any services that can do this? I’m thinking I should make my own domain for emails that way my email addresses aren’t tied to any companies and I can easily switch.
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If you’re already doing your own domain, why not use something like anonaddy? That can.be selfhosted as well.
It’s renamed to addy.io but you should still find it as AnonAddy
The answer is yes. The receiver can do whatever they want with the “localpart” of the email address.
However you will need to find a provider that supports it. For available services you are probably looking at one of two options:
Toaddress however you want.If you want full control you can run your own email server. For example that is what I do. I generate addresses in the form of
{description}-{signature}@me.example. So if they try to remove stuff the signature will fail and the mail will get rejected (well actually just heavily weighted as spam). I do this using Rspamd with a custom rule written in Lua. Full details of this setup are here: https://kevincox.ca/2022/07/07/signed-email-addresses/I think what you’re looking for is called a “Catch-All” or wildcard email address. Basically it looks like this:
*@yourdomain.tld, and you would set it up to forward to a real email address of your choosing.These are typically managed either via your domain hosting provider, or possible through your email provider.
Be forewarned, this does open you up to getting more spam because everything is a valid email address.
My solution to this has been a catchall on my domain.
service1@domain.com, service2@domain.com, etc
how do u set these up?
First purchase a domain. Cloudflare is definitely the cheapest but there are other options out there if you don’t want to use Cloudflare.
Use an alias service like SimpleLogin or addy.io. addy.io has a cheaper ‘lite’ (limited) plan, SL has a cheaper ‘premium’ (unlimited) plan.
Alias is not catchall
They both will automatically create an address on-the-fly. Give a service whatever@domain.tld and it will automatically be generated and sent to your mailbox of choice.
Thanks, I’ve been using proton on my custom domains so far, who seem to support catch all email addresses*, although I’d love also to have a feature where I could cut off an email if it gets too spammy, I think I’ve seen that on some other alias services. Do you know if that’s something simple login can do?
Yes, both SL and addy.io have the feature to enable/disable individual addresses.
Nice thank u for the infos ❤️
Why use a catch all when you can configure postfix to use
_as a separator instead of+. and then you can configure dovecot to automatically classify the selector into directories!Use a relay service, like simplelogin or mozilla relay.
Unfortunately, this seems to be the only option, besides using your own domain so that you control forwarding yourself. Basically, pay someone like Firefox Relay to do forwarding, or do your own forwarding. Firefox Relay does give you five email addresses for free, which is cool. (https://relay.firefox.com/#pricing)
I’ve noticed that the “+” sign trick with Gmail just doesn’t work at all anymore. Anyone that wants to maliciously send you emails knows to remove what comes after the + sign, so that you can’t tell which of your sub-addresses was originally used. And anyone that hacks a database to steal email addresses knows to remove it as well, to cover their tracks.
Simplelogin gives you 10 aliases for free. You can pay to add your own custom domain. I’m just afraid of adding mine because I don’t want to get my domain blacklisted. Also, if you already pay for Proton Unlimited, then Simplelogin Premium is free.