Introduction
With the proliferation of Spam on the Internet, many people have taken to using disposable email addresses to help slow the flood of unsolicited emails into their primary email account. Instead of providing their real address and password when signing up for websites, services or filling out registration forms online, users will instead use their disposable address. In the case that their disposable email address starts to receive spam, they can simply delete (or "dispose") of their temporary address and start a new one. While using disposable email addresses is only one of the many ways that you can help eliminate spam, it is one of the most powerful.
Why Set Up a Disposable Address
There are a number of good reasons for using a disposable email address: If you use your Real email address to sign up for a service online, there is a good chance that it will fall into the hands of spammers. If this happens, you're inbox will be inundated with junk mail - making it hard for you to identify and manage your Real messages. While many of the websites and services that you access online will claim to be secure and promise not to let your personal information get into the wrong hands, it is nearly impossible for them to ensure complete security. Some (more nefarious) site owners may even sell the email address information they collect directly to spammers or direct marketers. Disposable email addresses are Free and can be used or disposed of at your convenience. They can also be configured to meet your specific needs.
How to Use Your Disposable Address
One of the great things about disposable email addresses is that they can be configured or set up to meet your specific needs. From message forwarding, RSS feeds, multiple aliases and spam maps, disposable email accounts offer many different features to help you identify and manage spam. While not all disposable email services will offer all of these features, you should have no problem finding one to meet your needs.
Message Forwarding
One of the great things about disposable email accounts is that you can set them up so that any messages you receive will be forwarded directly to your primary account. This way you can manage all of your accounts from one email account. If any of your disposable addresses start getting spam, you can simply delete the account and the messages will stop being forwarded to your primary email address.
Multiple Aliases
Many disposable email services will allow users to set up multiple accounts (or "Aliases"). This can be helpful if you want to use different accounts to manage emails from many different services. Also, when you do start getting spam, it can help you identify which of the services was responsible for letting your email address get into the wrong hands.
Expiration Date
Another helpful feature of disposable email addresses is that they can often be set up to automatically expire after a certain amount of time. While some disposable email services have a set amount of time until their accounts expire (such as 10 Minute Mail), others will let you specify exactly how long you want the account to be active for. Also, some accounts can be set up to automatically expire after a certain amount of email addresses have been received.
Spam Maps
Although it may not serve a practical purpose for casual Internet users, this feature is still pretty cool. Since disposable email services are basically just magnets for spam, they have the ability to collect large amounts of data on where that spam is coming from. That data can be used to create a Spam Map that visually represents where the junk mail that they receive is coming from.
RSS Feeds
Disposable email services that offer RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds for your temporary email account make it easy for you to subscribe and keep an eye on the messages that you are receiving. This can be an alternative to having your mail forwarded to your primary email address.
Disposable Email Services
Here are some of the most popular disposable email services, with brief descriptions of the various services they offer: Mailinator: Receive-only email, No Sign-Up required, RSS feeds, Widget, Spam Map
10 Minute Mail: Automatically expires after 10 Minutes, changes domains regularly
2Prong.com: Receive-only email, temporary email accounts, Open Source platform, changes domains
SpamGourmet: Mail forwarding, custom aliases, requires registration
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