How to Use Hide My Email on iPhone, Mac and Safari

How to use Hide My Email on iPhone is a question that comes up the moment someone realises their address has appeared on every mailing list, data broker, and retailer they ever signed up with. Apple's Hide My Email generates a unique relay address for each service — a random string ending in @privaterelay.appleid.com — that forwards mail to your real iCloud inbox without exposing your actual address to the site.

There are three places this address gets created: when a Safari email field prompts you to use one, when you choose Sign in with Apple on a compatible site or app, and when you create one manually in Settings or iCloud.com. This guide covers all three entry points, explains the labelling habit that makes the feature useful at scale, and describes what to do when Hide My Email fails to appear.

The short answer#

On iPhone, the fastest manual path is: Settings, then your name at the top, then iCloud, then Hide My Email, then Create New Address. Apple generates a random relay address, you add a label, and the address is active within seconds. On Mac, the same controls live in System Settings under your name.

If you are filling out a web form in Safari, you do not need to visit Settings first. Tap the email field and look for Use Hide My Email in the QuickType bar that appears above the keyboard. Safari generates the address and fills it into the form automatically.

An active iCloud+ subscription is required for any of this to work. Hide My Email is not part of the free iCloud tier.

Before you start#

Two requirements apply across all three creation methods.

• iCloud+ subscription. Any paid iCloud+ tier — 50 GB, 200 GB, or 2 TB — includes Hide My Email. If the option is missing or greyed out, check that your subscription is active under Settings, then your name, then Subscriptions.
• Supported software version. iPhone and iPad require iOS 15 or later; Mac requires macOS Monterey or later. On iPhone, Settings, General, Software Update shows your current version.
• Safari for the web-form method. The QuickType suggestion only appears in Apple's own Safari browser. Chrome, Firefox, and other third-party browsers on iPhone do not trigger it. The manual path in Settings works regardless of which browser you use.

Create a Hide My Email address from a Safari sign-up form#

This is the most common entry point. The sequence is short, but the suggestion only appears under specific conditions — here is exactly what to look for.

1. 1

   Open Safari and navigate to any sign-up page

   The Hide My Email suggestion appears on fields that websites mark as email inputs with the correct HTML input type. Older forms using a plain text field instead may not trigger it.

2. 2

   Tap or click the email field

   On iPhone and iPad, the QuickType toolbar above the keyboard shows Use Hide My Email alongside your saved addresses. On Mac, a small dropdown appears below the field. If neither appears, see the troubleshooting section below.

3. 3

   Select Use Hide My Email

   Safari generates a random @privaterelay.appleid.com address and shows it to you before filling the form. The address is not committed yet — you can dismiss and reopen the suggestion if you want to see the same one again.

4. 4

   Tap Continue and add a label

   Type the name of the site or service — for example, ShopName Newsletter or ProductHunt signup. The label is only visible to you in your Hide My Email list, and it is the only way to trace a leak back to its source later.

5. 5

   Tap Done

   The relay address is active and forwarding to your iCloud inbox immediately. It appears in your Hide My Email list in Settings under the label you gave it.

Create a Hide My Email address manually in Settings#

This path is useful when you want to prepare an address before visiting a site, or when you are using a browser other than Safari. The steps below are for iPhone; the Mac path is in the tip below.

1. 1

   Open Settings and tap your name at the top

   Your Apple ID name and photo appear at the very top of the Settings list. Tap them to open your Apple account page.

2. 2

   Tap iCloud, then find Hide My Email

   Hide My Email appears in the iCloud features list below the apps section. Tap it to open your full address list.

3. 3

   Tap Create New Address

   Apple generates a random relay address. If you prefer a different one, tap Use Different Address to generate another option without committing to the current one.

4. 4

   Add a label and an optional note

   The label names the address in your list. The note field accepts free text — useful for recording the URL or the date you created the address, particularly if you are managing dozens of them.

5. 5

   Tap Done

   The address is live and syncs across all devices signed in to the same Apple ID within seconds.

How Sign in with Apple creates a Hide My Email address#

When a website or app shows a Continue with Apple button, tapping it starts a Sign in with Apple flow. If you choose to hide your email during this step, Apple creates a unique relay address for that service automatically — you do not initiate it from Settings.

On the sign-in sheet that appears, choose Hide My Email when asked which email address to share with the app or site. Apple creates a relay address scoped to that one service. It appears in your Hide My Email list in Settings, linked to the app or website name, so you can deactivate it later if needed.

Addresses created via Sign in with Apple behave identically to manually created ones — mail to them forwards to your iCloud inbox — but they carry an additional tie to the app's access. If you later revoke an app's Sign in with Apple access from Settings, forwarding from that relay address stops at the same time.

Platform differences at a glance#

The table below shows which actions are available on each platform, checked against Apple's documentation as of August 2026. The Hide My Email list is shared across all signed-in devices, so an address created on iPhone appears immediately on Mac and iCloud.com.

What to do when Hide My Email doesn't show up#

Two problems come up most often: the Safari suggestion does not appear on a web form, and the option is missing from Settings entirely.

• Safari suggestion missing on a web form. First confirm you are in Safari, not another browser. Then check that the site's email field uses the correct HTML input type — plain text fields do not trigger the suggestion. Finally, if iCloud Private Relay is active and the network is blocking it, Hide My Email suggestions can disappear alongside it. Turn Private Relay off temporarily under Settings, your name, iCloud, Private Relay to isolate the cause.
• Hide My Email missing from Settings. This almost always means one of three things: no active iCloud+ subscription, a software version below iOS 15 on iPhone or macOS Monterey on Mac, or the device is signed in to a different Apple ID than the one holding the subscription.
• Mail sent to a relay address not arriving. Check two things: the address is active rather than deactivated (Settings, your name, iCloud, Hide My Email, tap the address, confirm Active status), and the forwarding address listed under My Email is one you still control. If forwarding points to a closed or unreachable address, mail disappears silently with no bounce to the sender.
• Address list too long to navigate. This is where the labelling discipline earns its keep. If you skipped labelling at creation time, open any unlabelled address in Settings and add a label now. A short description of the service and the month you created it — for example, SaaSTool trial Aug 2026 — is enough to make the list useful when you are tracing spam six months later.

A faster way to manage what lands in your inbox#

Hide My Email keeps websites from learning your real address, and that solves the leak at source. What it does not do is triage the mail that arrives anyway. Every newsletter you agreed to, every service notification, every receipt still forwards to your iCloud inbox — relay address or not — sitting alongside the messages that actually need a reply.

AI Emaily connects to iCloud Mail via IMAP and handles the triage layer that Hide My Email leaves open. Its spam filter catches unsolicited mail that still gets through relay addresses, and its agent separates messages that need a reply from the ones that only need to be filed. When the agent drafts a reply, it holds it for your approval before anything is sent — nothing goes out unreviewed. The writing tone comes from a Personal Context brain and per-client profiles you configure, not from reading your sent mail. We build AI Emaily; there is a 7-day free trial on the paid plans.