Best Email Alias Services to Stop Spam at the Source (2026)

The best email alias service to stop spam does one thing a filter cannot: it stops junk before it ever reaches an address you have to keep. Instead of handing one email address to every shop, newsletter and app, you give each signup its own masked address that forwards to your real inbox.

When a shop leaks, sells or gets breached, you disable the single alias it was sent to. The spam stops at the source and your real inbox never sees it. That is prevention, not filtering — the junk is turned off rather than sorted after the fact.

This guide ranks seven masked-address services on what actually matters once you rely on one: whether the forward is reliable, whether you can reply from the alias, whether you can bring your own domain, what happens if the service shuts down, and the shape of the free tier. Every capability below was checked against each vendor's own page in July 2026. Verify the current details before you commit — privacy products change terms often.

The short answer: which alias service to pick#

For most people, SimpleLogin is the best pick. It supports reply-from-alias, custom domains and per-alias PGP, and because it is open source and self-hostable, you are not trapped if the company changes course. That last point is the one buyers underrate and regret most.

If you want the most generous free tier, addy.io gives you unlimited standard aliases and is also open source. If you would rather not run a separate app, DuckDuckGo Email Protection is free, unlimited and dead simple. Deep in the Apple ecosystem, Apple Hide My Email is the frictionless option, and if you already pay for Fastmail, its masked email is built in.

• Best overall and most portable: SimpleLogin
• Most generous free tier: addy.io
• Simplest free option, no account juggling: DuckDuckGo Email Protection
• Best inside the Apple ecosystem: Apple Hide My Email
• Best if you already pay for a mailbox: Fastmail masked email

How we compared these masked email address services#

A masked address is only useful if the forward is dependable and you keep control of it. We weighted five capabilities, each confirmed on the vendor's own page rather than a review site.

The dimension people skip is the last one. A shared-domain alias like an @duck.com or @icloud address only works while that company keeps the service alive. If you use your own custom domain instead, you can re-point your mail elsewhere and keep receiving — the aliases survive the provider.

• Reply from alias: can you answer a forwarded email without exposing your real address?
• Custom domain: can you create aliases on a domain you own, not just the provider's shared one?
• Portability if it shuts down: open source, self-hosting, or your own domain — anything that lets you leave with your aliases intact.
• Free tier shape: how many aliases you get before paying, and what the paid step unlocks.
• Data handling: whether the service can read forwarded mail, and whether encryption is available.

Email alias services compared at a glance#

Every cell below reflects each vendor's live documentation as of July 2026. No prices are listed here on purpose — plans shift, and the shape of the tier matters more than a number that may already be stale by the time you read it.

1. SimpleLogin — the best all-round pick#

SimpleLogin, now owned by Proton and registered in Switzerland, is the most complete option. You create a unique alias for each signup, and mail forwards to your real inbox. Hit reply and, in SimpleLogin's words, the reply is sent from your alias while your real address stays hidden.

It supports custom domains, so you can make aliases like [email protected]. It offers optional per-alias PGP: when you add your public key, mail is encrypted before it reaches your mailbox, so only you can decrypt it. That is opt-in, not the default.

The decisive advantage is portability. SimpleLogin is open source and, by its own description, the email-forwarding service that can be self-hosted. Between that and custom-domain support, a change of ownership or a shutdown does not strand your aliases. There is a free tier with a limited number of aliases and a paid tier that lifts the cap.

2. addy.io — the most generous free tier#

addy.io is the pick if you want the widest free allowance. Its free plan gives you unlimited standard aliases, ten shared-domain aliases, one recipient address and a monthly bandwidth allowance, with paid Lite and Pro tiers adding more.

It supports custom domains, including catch-all and regex matching, and it is open source with self-hosting documentation — so it earns the same portability marks as SimpleLogin. You can also bring your own GPG/OpenPGP keys per recipient so forwarded mail is encrypted to you.

One caveat to weigh: replying anonymously from an alias is a paid feature on addy.io, so if reply-from-alias matters to you day one, budget for the paid step. For pure inbound signups where you never need to answer, the free tier is unusually strong.

3. Firefox Relay — the mainstream, Mozilla-backed option#

Firefox Relay is Mozilla's masking service, which buys it a level of institutional trust most alias tools cannot match. The free plan includes five email masks, the browser extension and email-tracker removal, which is enough to protect your highest-risk signups.

Relay Premium unlocks unlimited masks and lets you reply to mail from your masked address so the sender never learns your real one. Premium also gives you a unique Relay email domain where you can invent a mask on the spot by typing any word before the @ sign, and it can block promotional email.

Two limits to note. Reply-from-mask is Premium-only, and Relay is not something you self-host, so your masks live on Mozilla's infrastructure rather than a domain you control. Higher tiers bundle phone-number masking and VPN.

4. DuckDuckGo Email Protection — the simplest free tool#

DuckDuckGo Email Protection is the least-friction way to start. It is a free forwarding service that removes multiple types of hidden email trackers and lets you create unlimited private @duck.com addresses on the fly. It layers over your existing Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail or Proton inbox rather than replacing it.

You can reply from a Duck Address, and DuckDuckGo strips trackers out of forwarded mail automatically — a privacy touch the others mostly leave to you. There is a personal @duck.com address for one-off use plus the unlimited generated addresses.

The trade-off is portability. There is no custom-domain option, so every address lives on @duck.com. If the service ever stopped, those addresses would stop with it. For low-stakes shopping and newsletter signups where you value simplicity over control, that is an easy trade.

5. Proton Pass aliases — aliases bundled with your passwords#

Proton Pass folds hide-my-email aliases into a password manager, and it uses SimpleLogin by Proton under the hood — so the forwarding engine is the same proven one behind our top pick. If you want one app for logins and masked addresses, this is the tidiest route.

Aliases are permanent randomly-generated addresses that forward to your main inbox, and Proton states it never stores your emails, relying on instant forwarding. Replying from an alias is supported: your response is automatically sent from the alias, keeping your real address private.

It supports custom domains, which Proton positions for people without their own email hosting. There is a free tier with a limited number of aliases and a paid step for unlimited. You do not get self-hosting here the way you would with standalone SimpleLogin, but a custom domain still gives you a way out.

6. Apple Hide My Email — best inside the Apple ecosystem#

Apple Hide My Email is the smoothest option if you live on Apple devices, because it is wired into Safari, Mail and Sign in with Apple. It generates a random address that forwards to your primary iCloud inbox, and you can turn an address off when it starts attracting spam.

The catch is that it requires an iCloud+ subscription — the general create-an-address-anywhere feature is a paid iCloud+ perk, not free. Addresses live on Apple's domains, so there is no custom-domain option and no way to take them with you if you leave the ecosystem.

Apple's documentation describes forwarding to your inbox and lets you deactivate or reactivate addresses. We could not confirm the exact reply-from-alias behaviour against Apple's live page in this pass, so treat replying from a masked address as documented-but-verify on your own device before you depend on it.

7. Fastmail masked email — best if you already pay for a mailbox#

Fastmail's masked email is not a standalone free alias tool — it comes with a paid Fastmail mailbox. If you already host mail there, it is the most convenient option because there is no second service to manage.

It generates a unique address for each login so your real address stays private, and it integrates directly with 1Password and Bitwarden, so a masked address is created at the moment you save a new login. It supports custom domains, which Fastmail notes is a little less anonymous than the shared domain but keeps your addresses portable.

Because Fastmail is your mailbox host rather than a forwarder, the shutdown question is different: on a shared Fastmail domain your masks are tied to the service, but on your own custom domain they move with you. If you are shopping for masking alone and do not want a paid mailbox, start elsewhere.

Where AI Emaily fits — and where it does not#

Here is the honest limit up front: AI Emaily is not an alias service. We do not create masked addresses or forward mail from a burner, and if that is all you need, pick one of the seven services above. We build AI Emaily, so we will point you at them plainly rather than pretend we do their job.

An alias solves one half of the problem — the mail reaching an address you can burn. It does nothing for the address you cannot change: your bank, your doctor, your accountant, ten years of real correspondence tied to your primary inbox. You cannot hand your mortgage lender a throwaway @duck.com.

That is the mail AI Emaily works on. It triages what actually reaches your real inbox — sorting cold outreach and low-value senders away from what matters, drafting replies from a Context brain you set rather than anything scraped from your sent mail, and keeping an approve-before-send step, undo and an audit trail so nothing goes out without you. See our spam-protection and rules-brain features for the mechanics.

The clean division: use an alias service to stop spam at the addresses you can rotate, and let a triage layer handle the address you are stuck with. They are complementary, not competitors.

How to choose for your situation#

The right service depends on how much control you need and what you already pay for. Match yourself to the closest case below.

1. 1

   You want the safest long-term bet

   Choose SimpleLogin or addy.io. Both are open source and self-hostable and both support custom domains, so a shutdown or a policy change cannot strand your aliases.

2. 2

   You want maximum free coverage

   addy.io gives unlimited standard aliases free; DuckDuckGo gives unlimited @duck.com addresses free and strips trackers. Pick addy.io if you may want a custom domain later, DuckDuckGo if you value zero setup.

3. 3

   You live on Apple devices

   Apple Hide My Email is the least-friction choice if you already have iCloud+, because it is built into Mail, Safari and Sign in with Apple.

4. 4

   You want passwords and aliases in one app

   Proton Pass bundles SimpleLogin-powered aliases with a password manager, so a masked address is created as you save a login.

5. 5

   You already pay for Fastmail

   Use its built-in masked email with 1Password or Bitwarden — there is nothing extra to sign up for.

6. 6

   The mail you cannot alias is the problem

   Aliases will not help with your bank or doctor. Pair one with a triage layer such as AI Emaily for the inbox behind your real address.

One caution before you rely on masked addresses#

A masked address is not a spam filter. It reduces spam by giving you a kill switch per sender — disable the alias a leaker used and that stream stops. It does not clean an address that is already circulating, and if you forward everything to one inbox, a badly behaved sender still lands there until you cut the specific alias.

Frequently asked questions#

Common questions about using masked addresses to cut spam, answered from each vendor's documentation as of July 2026.