We all know how is goes here in 2020. Almost every website you go to tries to get you to sign up for their email, or start an account or get a free giveaway. The problem is once you do that, you are inundated with tons of unwanted email that clogs your inbox. Yes, there are probably a few newsletters and updates that you like to receive, but for the most part it is junk and not worth your time. Just because you bought a HDMI cable in 2015 from some random company, now you get their damn daily email blast, month newsletter and products highlights that you might like. So the solution is to get a disposable email address and beat them at their own game.
Even when these services you sign up for are legit, you don’t necessarily want a million promotional offers, feature updates, and other randomness filling up your inbox. Then there are the services that you’d rather just try out first, before you start sharing anything personal like an email address, phone number, kids names and date of lost virginity.
When it comes to email addresses, you’ve got a number of free or paid upgraded options to pick from—email addresses don’t cost much to set up and maintain. You can look into cell numbers, but you’re going to need to pay. It doesn’t have to be much but it can add up when the goal is just to block spammers.
Disposable Email Addresses
10 Minute Mail creates, as its name implies, email addresses that last just 10 minutes. For those 10 minutes, you can check any incoming messages through a simple web interface (in case you need to verify the address exists after using it), and you can get an extra 600 seconds added to the life span of the email address if you need it.
This is for truly disposable email, though—where you want to sign up and then forget the sign-up ever happened. You should still be able to log into the app or service you’ve signed up for, but once the email address gets trashed, you won’t be able to reset your password, delete your account, or do anything else you need a working email address for. Check it out here.
Guerrilla Mail does a very good job of generating a disposable email address. The site gives you plenty of flexibility in picking your temporary address too, with a choice of domain names (after the “@”) and the option to scramble up a new address at random with a click. You don’t get any forwarding options with Guerilla Mail, just an inbox where messages arrive and stay for an hour (read or not). You can use it to validate email addresses if that’s necessary, and the address will stay active until you click the Forget Me button—at which point the email will be gone. Yes, the site looks like it was built in 1998 but it works just fine. Check it out here.
Few disposable email address services have the polish and the features of Burner Mail, perhaps because it’s funded by premium, paid-for accounts (though you can still create up to five temporary addresses for free). You can use it as a web app or as a Chrome extension, and if you install the browser plug-in you can simply click a button to generate an email address when you’re signing up for something new. Once you’ve created a burner address, it can be set up to forward messages to one of your other email accounts, and you can also check out incoming messages through the Burner Mail web app (no forwarding necessary). At any point, you can change the address that emails are forwarded to, or get rid of a temporary address completely once you’re done with it. Pretty cool company. Check It Out Here.
When it comes to disposable cell phone number, really you are going to have to pay for that service. One we found is called Burner. Burner is one of the most well-established and longest-running burner number services around. Your new number functions just like a real one inside the mobile apps, with support for SMS, MMS, and voicemail as well as calls. When you decide you’re done with a particular number, you can trash it and you need never have to hear from anyone who had that number again. You can try Burner for free with one number for a limited time. After that there are a variety of payment options—you can either pay as you go per number or sign up for a monthly subscription.
So there your go. some options to avoid all of those dang spam emails from every company you have ever bought something from or anytime you wanted a “free” piece of content. Use at your own risk. If you want to learn more Tech, checkout Not Yet Fired.
Featured Picture from Pixabay