Temp Mail vs Email Aliases vs Plus Addressing: Which Should You Use?
Temporary email, email aliases and plus addressing all hide your real inbox, but in different ways. Compare them and pick the right tool for each sign-up.
· 3 min read · By the Poofy team
There are three popular ways to avoid giving websites your real email address: temporary email, email aliases and plus addressing. They solve slightly different problems. Here's how they compare, and when to use each.
The quick comparison
| Temp mail | Email alias | Plus addressing | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hides your real address | Yes | Yes | No |
| Needs an account | No | Yes | No (uses your inbox) |
| Mail lands in your main inbox | No | Yes (forwarded) | Yes |
| Easy to throw away | Yes | Yes (disable alias) | Only with filters |
| Good for important accounts | No | Sometimes | Yes |
| Setup time | Seconds | Minutes | None |
Temporary email
A temp mail service gives you a brand-new address on its own domain, with a separate inbox you read on the service's website. Nothing touches your real inbox.
Best for: one-off sign-ups, free trials, downloads, forums and verification codes where you want zero connection to your identity.
Watch out for: some websites block temporary email domains, and short-lived inboxes can disappear before a follow-up email arrives. Services like Poofy that let you reopen an inbox with a password avoid the second problem.
Email aliases
An alias service creates addresses that forward to your real inbox. You can switch an alias off when it starts receiving spam.
Best for: ongoing relationships with shops and services you trust, where you want mail in your normal inbox but still want to be able to cut them off.
Watch out for: the alias provider sees your mail as it passes through, you need an account, and your real address is one misconfigured reply away from being revealed.
Plus addressing
Many mail providers let you add a tag after a plus sign: [email protected] still reaches [email protected].
Best for: sorting mail and spotting which company leaked or sold your address.
Watch out for: it doesn't hide anything. Your real address is right there, and spammers can simply strip the tag. Some sign-up forms also reject the plus sign.
Which should you choose?
- Never want to hear from them again? Use temp mail.
- Want their mail, but on your terms? Use an alias.
- Just want to know who's leaking your address? Use plus addressing.
- Banking, government, work or recovery email? Use your permanent address, with a strong password and two-factor authentication.
Many privacy-minded people use all three. The key is matching the tool to how much you trust the site and how long you'll need the account.
Where Poofy fits
Poofy is temporary email with a twist: every inbox has a password, so you can come back to it. That makes it useful for the middle ground between "one code and gone" and "forward everything to my real inbox", like trials you might keep, communities you'll check occasionally, or accounts you're testing. Try it free.