Hide My Email vs iCloud Alias: Which One Should You Use?

An iCloud alias is one of up to nine free, named @icloud.com addresses that send and receive in your main iCloud mailbox. Hide My Email creates random relay addresses that forward to your inbox, and making your own needs iCloud+. Use aliases for addresses you plan to keep, and Hide My Email for disposable signups.

Both show up in Apple's settings and both work as an email hider for your real address, but they do different jobs. Giving a newsletter you may want to cut off an alias, or putting a random Hide My Email address on a business card, is the mistake this post helps you avoid. Steps here are for iOS 27 and macOS 27; the same menus exist in iOS 26.

Which should you use?#

Use an iCloud alias when you want a stable address you will keep and that reads like a real mailbox: a contact address on a personal site, a receipts address, or a household role address such as bills@. You choose the name, it costs nothing, and you can send from it on any device where iCloud Mail is on.

Use Hide My Email when the address is meant to be thrown away: retail signups, marketplace listings, newsletters you are trying out. Each site gets its own random address, so when one leaks to spammers you turn off that one address and nothing else changes.

If you have iCloud+, use both. Hide My Email loses badly as a public address, because nobody prints a random string on a website and looks professional. Aliases lose on volume, because a handful of addresses shared across fifty signups can't cut off one leak without cutting off the rest. For alias setup steps, see how to create an iCloud email alias, and for the relay side, how to use Hide My Email.

• Public contact address for a site or profile: iCloud alias.
• Shop, forum or service you may abandon: Hide My Email.
• Household role inbox such as school@ or family@: iCloud alias.
• A one-off email to a stranger: Hide My Email, composed in Apple Mail.
• Newsletter you are trying out: Hide My Email.
• An address you log in with every day, or need to send from in a non-Apple app: iCloud alias.

Hide My Email vs iCloud alias at a glance#

Is Hide My Email free?#

Not on its own. Creating and managing your own Hide My Email addresses, in Settings, Safari, Mail or on iCloud.com, needs an iCloud+ subscription, either yours or one shared through Family Sharing. Every iCloud+ tier includes it. Apple's iCloud+ prices vary by country, so check Apple's iCloud+ page for yours.

There is one exception. When you create an account with Sign in with Apple, you can choose Hide My Email and Apple makes a relay address ending in @privaterelay.appleid.com or @private.icloud.com that only that app or website can use. Apple's Sign in with Apple page doesn't list iCloud+ as a requirement for this; it says iCloud+ is needed only to change the address those emails forward to. You can see these addresses under Settings, your name, Sign in with Apple.

iCloud aliases are free with any iCloud Mail account. If you are deciding whether to keep paying, read what happens if you stop paying for iCloud+ first.

How many aliases and Hide My Email addresses can you have?#

You can have up to nine iCloud aliases, and Apple says you can create as many Hide My Email addresses as you need. Apple's US iCloud guide now says nine, while some regional versions of the same guide, and the first version of this post, still say three. If Add Alias is still offered after your third, your account allows more. If you have nine aliases and delete one, Apple makes you wait 7 days before you can create a new one. Apple doesn't publish a fixed number for Hide My Email addresses.

Where iCloud aliases win#

You choose the name. hello@, invoices@ or family@ reads like a mailbox you meant to publish, and nothing tells the recipient it isn't your main address. Hide My Email gives you a random string, which is the point for signups and the reason you wouldn't print one on a business card.

They cost nothing and keep working if iCloud+ lapses. That matters for any address you use to recover an account, because a Hide My Email address you can no longer manage is a hard place to recover from.

They send everywhere iCloud Mail is set up. Apple says you can send and receive from an alias on iCloud.com and on any device with Mail turned on in iCloud settings. Many third-party mail apps also let you add an alias as a From address over iCloud's SMTP server, but Apple doesn't document that, so check your app. One limit to know: you can't use an alias to create a separate Apple Account.

Where Hide My Email wins#

Volume. Nine aliases cover a household's role addresses. They don't cover a habit of signing up for something new every week. Hide My Email is built for that, and Apple puts no published limit on it.

One site, one address. When a shop leaks its list, only the address you gave that shop gets junk. Deactivate it and the spam stops, without touching any other account. Turning off an alias you shared with twenty services cuts off all twenty.

Private sending. In Mail on iPhone, iPad and Mac, and on iCloud.com, you can tap the From field and choose Hide My Email to write to someone new from a fresh random address. You can send to only one recipient at a time this way. Replies forward to your real inbox, and you can reply from the same relay, so the other person never sees your real address.

Where AI Emaily fits#

Aliases and relays control who has your address. They don't help with the mail that still arrives. AI Emaily is an email client that connects to iCloud Mail over IMAP with an iCloud app-specific password for Mail, alongside Gmail and Outlook. It sorts what lands, separates newsletters and cold outreach from mail that needs you, and drafts replies in the voice you set in your Personal Context; in Copilot mode you approve every send. It doesn't create aliases or relays. It has a 7-day free trial on Pro and Autopilot. We build AI Emaily.

What to do this week#

1. 1

   Decide which aliases to claim

   Pick the role addresses you want to keep for years. On iCloud.com, open Mail, select the Settings button at the top of the mailbox list, choose Settings, then Add Alias. You have nine slots, but a deleted alias at the limit takes 7 days to replace.

2. 2

   Use Hide My Email for new signups

   With iCloud+, go to Settings, your name, iCloud, Hide My Email, and tap Create New Address. In Safari and supported apps, tap the email field and choose Hide My Email above the keyboard to make one on the spot.

3. 3

   Move signups you regret

   For any account still using your main address, change its email to a new Hide My Email address. Deactivate the old relay only after the new one is getting that service's alerts.

4. 4

   Clean up old relays

   In Settings, your name, iCloud, Hide My Email, tap a relay you no longer use and choose Deactivate Email Address. Delete it later from the inactive list on iCloud.com if you are sure you won't need it.