6 Best Free Temporary Email Websites and Email Alias Services
Keep spam out of your real inbox. Free disposable email websites and email alias services compared: how long mail lasts, privacy and when to use each.
Here is a list of best free temporary email websites and email alias services. Many websites ask for an email address just to download a file, read an article or try a service, and that address then receives newsletters and spam for years. A temporary (disposable) email gives you a throwaway inbox for a few minutes or hours. An email alias is a longer-lasting forwarding address that you can switch off whenever it starts receiving spam.
Which one should you use?
- Temporary email is for one-off sign-ups where you only need a confirmation link or code. Never use it for accounts you care about: once the inbox is gone, you cannot reset your password.
- Email aliases are for accounts you want to keep but don’t fully trust. Mail is forwarded to your real inbox, and you can disable one alias without affecting the others.
Also note that many services now block well-known disposable email domains.
Top Pick:
Temp Mail is the quickest disposable inbox. For anything you may need again, use a free alias from SimpleLogin or addy.io.
Comparison Table:
| Service | Type | How long mail lasts | Private inbox |
|---|---|---|---|
| Temp Mail | Disposable | While the address is active | ✓ |
| Guerrilla Mail | Disposable | About 1 hour | Partly (anyone who knows the address can open it) |
| YOPmail | Disposable | About 8 days | x (anyone who knows the name can read it) |
| Mailinator | Disposable (public) | A short time | x (public inboxes) |
| SimpleLogin | Alias forwarding | Permanent | ✓ |
| addy.io | Alias forwarding | Permanent | ✓ |
Temp Mail
Temp Mail is the most popular disposable email website. Open the page and you instantly get a random address with an inbox that refreshes automatically. Use it to receive a verification email, then delete the address when you are done. It also has mobile apps and browser extensions.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Instant address, no sign-up | Its domains are blocked by many sites |
| Inbox refreshes automatically | Ads on the free version |
| Apps and extensions available |
Guerrilla Mail
Guerrilla Mail has been around since 2006. It gives you a random address on one of several domains, lets you choose your own address name, and can even send emails. Messages are deleted after about an hour. You can use the “scramble address” feature to hide your inbox ID when sharing the address.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Can send as well as receive | Mail disappears after about an hour |
| Choose your own address name | Anyone who knows the address can open it |
| Several domains to choose from |
YOPmail
YOPmail lets you use any address at yopmail.com without creating it first. Type the name into the site to read that inbox. Messages are kept for about 8 days, longer than most disposable services. Because there is no password, anyone who guesses the same name can read the inbox, so pick an unusual name.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Make up an address on the spot | No password, inboxes are not private |
| Mail kept for about 8 days | Domain is widely blocked |
| Alternate domains available |
Mailinator
Mailinator offers free public inboxes: send mail to any name at mailinator.com and read it on the website, no sign-up needed. Public inboxes can be read by anyone and are cleared quickly, so only use them for completely unimportant mail. Mailinator’s main business is paid private domains and an API for developers testing sign-up and email flows.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Any address works instantly | Everything is public |
| Great for testing email flows | Messages are deleted quickly |
| Paid API for QA teams |
SimpleLogin
SimpleLogin, now part of Proton, creates email aliases that forward to your real inbox. The free plan includes 10 aliases, 1 mailbox, unlimited bandwidth and the ability to reply from an alias without revealing your real address. Browser extensions and mobile apps make it easy to create an alias right in a sign-up form.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Reply without revealing your real address | Only 10 aliases on the free plan |
| Unlimited bandwidth | No custom domain on the free plan |
| Open source, backed by Proton |
addy.io
addy.io (formerly AnonAddy) is an open-source email alias service. The free plan includes unlimited standard aliases on your own username subdomain, 10 active shared-domain aliases and one recipient address. The main limit is a 10MB monthly bandwidth cap, which is fine for sign-up and notification emails but not for heavy mail.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Unlimited standard aliases | 10MB monthly bandwidth on the free plan |
| Open source and self-hostable | One recipient on the free plan |
| Browser extension and mobile apps |
Need a Permanent Address?
Temporary inboxes and aliases protect your real address, but for a business, a portfolio or anything you put on a business card, an address on your own domain (like [email protected]) looks more trustworthy and stays yours even if you change email providers.
There are two cheap ways to get one:
- Forwarding only: if your domain uses Cloudflare, its free Email Routing forwards mail sent to your domain to your existing inbox. Sending from that address takes extra setup.
- Real mailboxes: most web hosting plans include email accounts. Hostinger’s Premium hosting plan, for example, includes a free domain and 2 mailboxes per website for the first year, alongside hosting for your website. See Hostinger plans.
The Hostinger link is an affiliate link. See our affiliate disclaimer.
Final Thoughts:
Use Temp Mail or Guerrilla Mail when you just need a code and never want to hear from a site again. For accounts you plan to keep, set up SimpleLogin or addy.io once and give every website its own alias, so you always know who leaked or sold your address.
