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Would you mind sharing your experience on how well that has worked for you? Has the complexity of maintaining different addresses been a problem? I ask because

Would you mind sharing your experience on how well that has worked for you? Has the complexity of maintaining different addresses been a problem? I ask because it is something I have always thought about, but I suppose I kept hoping a service would come along and magic the solution for me. Kudos on making it happen!

reid 5y ago
Not OP, but I just accept wildcard *@mydomain and give out a unique name for every business. Works very well and I blocked a few businesses by which do not allow for opt-out and/or shared my address with others. This is easy to do with the Alias feature of FastMail.
- cstrat 5y ago
  Yeah I do the same thing with FastMail - its awesome. Here is a recent story where this came in handy. I recently had a spam phone call from someone fishing for personal information, using a 'survey' as cover. During the call I learned that they had my email address as 'ledger@xxxx.xxx'. This must have come from the Ledger data breach (https://www.ledger.com/message-ledgers-ceo-data-leak https://www.ledger.com/message-ledgers-ceo-data-leak). This made the call even more nefarious than I originally thought... nothing I can do, they have that email address and my personal number. Just made me more aware of what is going on.
  - NetOpWibby 5y ago
    That’s terrifying.
rootusrootus 5y ago
I'm not OP but I do something similar, which I can describe. I don't whitelist addresses, I have a domain with a catchall account. So I make up addresses as needed. When I want them to die, I add them to a ruleset on the server that punts them into the bit bucket. So far it has been really great. Easy, effective. Edit: Like the other reply you got, I use FastMail for this service.
- theK 5y ago
  Dito, have been doing the same with a selfhosted mailcow for years. Never had a problem :-) Lately I started switching over to account+labels@domain.tld style because of the automated organization so I don't need extra routing rules if I want to organize them.
  - wombatpm 5y ago
    Except for the sites that reject the + character in email. I curse those developers who do that and never go back to that site again.
- btmiller 5y ago
  Here’s a good guide on how to go about this :) https://btmiller.com/2019/12/12/regain-control-over-your-inbox-by-rejecting-email-with-a-custom-domain-wildcard-and-aliases.html https://btmiller.com/2019/12/12/regain-control-over-your-inb...
- dkersten 5y ago
  I do something similar and also use FastMail. I use <site-name>@sites.<my-domain> for all site signups, eg news.ycombinator.com@sites.example.com
DoctorDabadedoo 5y ago
There is a service for that: https://anonaddy.com/ https://anonaddy.com/ I've used it briefly for testing purposes and I have no complaints about it, it delivered what I expected with no hiccups.
- 882542F3884314B 5y ago
  Adding another comparable offering is https://simplelogin.io https://simplelogin.io and you can set a PGP key for forwarded emails.
SilverRed 5y ago
I did it for ages and eventually stopped. It gets awkward when you have to deal with customer support people and I never caught any spammers via the method anyway. Difficulty wise it was trivial since all emails hit my main address.
- jbaber 5y ago
  When I can tell it'll be awkward, I just make up some letters on the spot like "gj5@mydomain.com". It's easy enough to look for To:gj5 in your horded mail to find out what business it was.
  - cstrat 5y ago
    I've done this too before, weird thing to have to do but sometimes people just don't get it. Although, nine times out of ten I get asked if I work at that business because the first bit of my email address is their business name.
prashantsengar 5y ago
I use anonaddy for this. A generous free plan, really feasible paid plans, and is open source so you can self-host it as well.

reid 5y ago

Not OP, but I just accept wildcard *@mydomain and give out a unique name for every business. Works very well and I blocked a few businesses by which do not allow for opt-out and/or shared my address with others. This is easy to do with the Alias feature of FastMail.

cstrat 5y ago
Yeah I do the same thing with FastMail - its awesome. Here is a recent story where this came in handy. I recently had a spam phone call from someone fishing for personal information, using a 'survey' as cover. During the call I learned that they had my email address as 'ledger@xxxx.xxx'. This must have come from the Ledger data breach (https://www.ledger.com/message-ledgers-ceo-data-leak https://www.ledger.com/message-ledgers-ceo-data-leak). This made the call even more nefarious than I originally thought... nothing I can do, they have that email address and my personal number. Just made me more aware of what is going on.
- NetOpWibby 5y ago
  That’s terrifying.

rootusrootus 5y ago

I'm not OP but I do something similar, which I can describe. I don't whitelist addresses, I have a domain with a catchall account. So I make up addresses as needed. When I want them to die, I add them to a ruleset on the server that punts them into the bit bucket. So far it has been really great. Easy, effective. Edit: Like the other reply you got, I use FastMail for this service.

theK 5y ago
Dito, have been doing the same with a selfhosted mailcow for years. Never had a problem :-) Lately I started switching over to account+labels@domain.tld style because of the automated organization so I don't need extra routing rules if I want to organize them.
- wombatpm 5y ago
  Except for the sites that reject the + character in email. I curse those developers who do that and never go back to that site again.
btmiller 5y ago
Here’s a good guide on how to go about this :) https://btmiller.com/2019/12/12/regain-control-over-your-inbox-by-rejecting-email-with-a-custom-domain-wildcard-and-aliases.html https://btmiller.com/2019/12/12/regain-control-over-your-inb...
dkersten 5y ago
I do something similar and also use FastMail. I use <site-name>@sites.<my-domain> for all site signups, eg news.ycombinator.com@sites.example.com

DoctorDabadedoo 5y ago

There is a service for that: https://anonaddy.com/ https://anonaddy.com/ I've used it briefly for testing purposes and I have no complaints about it, it delivered what I expected with no hiccups.

882542F3884314B 5y ago
Adding another comparable offering is https://simplelogin.io https://simplelogin.io and you can set a PGP key for forwarded emails.

SilverRed 5y ago

I did it for ages and eventually stopped. It gets awkward when you have to deal with customer support people and I never caught any spammers via the method anyway. Difficulty wise it was trivial since all emails hit my main address.

jbaber 5y ago
When I can tell it'll be awkward, I just make up some letters on the spot like "gj5@mydomain.com". It's easy enough to look for To:gj5 in your horded mail to find out what business it was.
- cstrat 5y ago
  I've done this too before, weird thing to have to do but sometimes people just don't get it. Although, nine times out of ten I get asked if I work at that business because the first bit of my email address is their business name.

prashantsengar 5y ago

I use anonaddy for this. A generous free plan, really feasible paid plans, and is open source so you can self-host it as well.