Best Email Alias Services Compared: How to Choose (2026)

An email alias service gives you a separate address for each signup, so your real address stays out of shop, newsletter, and app databases. Most services forward alias mail to the inbox you already use; a few keep it in a separate mailbox or app. As of September 2026, DuckDuckGo Email Protection gives you free, effectively unlimited addresses that can reply. SimpleLogin and Proton Pass let you reply for free but stop at 10 free aliases, and addy.io lets you make up unlimited addresses for free but charges for replies. If you’d rather keep alias mail out of your main inbox altogether, CatchNone gives every signup its own address and shows which one each message reached, without forwarding anything, on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

The right one depends on three questions: do you need to reply as the alias, do you want your own domain, and where should the mail land? This guide compares CatchNone, addy.io (formerly AnonAddy), DuckDuckGo Email Protection, Fastmail Masked Email, Firefox Relay, Apple’s Hide My Email, Proton Pass, and SimpleLogin, plus 33mail and Spamgourmet. You may also see them called “email masking” services. If aliases are new to you, start with what an email alias is and how it works.

A disclosure: CatchNone publishes this Journal. There are no affiliate links on this page.

First, decide the model

Alias services differ less in features than in where the mail goes.

• Forwarding. The alias passes each message on to your existing inbox, such as Gmail, Outlook, or iCloud Mail. addy.io, DuckDuckGo, Firefox Relay, Hide My Email, Proton Pass, SimpleLogin, 33mail, and Spamgourmet all work this way. You keep one inbox, and most let you reply as the alias, sometimes only on a paid plan.
• Mailbox. The alias is one more address on a full mail account, and mail lands in that provider’s inbox. Fastmail Masked Email works like this, as does iCloud+ Custom Email Domain for addresses on your own domain.
• Receive-only reader. A separate app, such as CatchNone, shows alias mail in one place without forwarding it anywhere, so there’s no forwarding to break. It’s receive-only by design, so you don’t reply as the alias. It either receives the mail on its own service or reads a mailbox your domain already delivers to, which may be your main one.

Catch-all isn’t a fourth model. It’s a domain setting that accepts mail for any address, so you can invent addresses as you go.

Do you need forwarding, or a separate inbox?

Choose forwarding if you read everything in Gmail or Outlook and want alias mail next to the rest. For Gmail on the web, forwarding is now the only ongoing way in. Gmail’s “Check mail from other accounts” (POP fetching) has taken no new users since the first quarter of 2026, and existing users can keep it only until January 2027 (Google’s notice).

Choose a separate inbox if the point is to keep signup mail out of your main inbox. A mailbox service still lets you reply; a receive-only reader doesn’t. Either way, signup mail stays apart only if it lands in an account you keep for signups, not the one you read every day.

Email alias services at a glance

CatchNone first, then the rest alphabetically, with prices and limits as of September 25, 2026. Prices are in US dollars as a US visitor sees them, and they change, so open the linked page before you pay.

Firefox Relay calls its aliases masks. Mozilla’s subscription terms now allow 50 free masks, up from 5. Mozilla announced the change in its Firefox 150.0.1 release notes on April 28, 2026, and some Relay pages still say 5. addy.io estimates its free 10 MB at about 140 emails; over the limit, mail is rejected until the next calendar month.

Facts about each service come from its own pricing, help, and legal pages, read on September 25, 2026. One date comes from outside reporting: Spamgourmet’s 2019 shutdown talk (Hacker News).

The criteria that matter

Replying and sending as the alias

This is where plans differ most, and where older roundups are often out of date.

• CatchNone: receive-only by design. Signup mail stays in its own app, and nothing ever goes out from your aliases; when you need to write to a company, use your usual account.
• addy.io: replying and sending are paid-only. On a Free account the message isn’t delivered, and you get an email saying the feature needs a paid plan (addy.io FAQ).
• Firefox Relay: replies need Premium and work within 3 months of receiving the email. Adding a CC or BCC to a reply exposes your real address (Relay FAQ).
• SimpleLogin: replies are free; starting a new email from an alias needs Premium (SimpleLogin pricing).
• Proton Pass: replies go out from the alias; starting a new conversation needs a paid plan (Proton help).
• DuckDuckGo: replies go out from the Duck Address, unless your forwarding address is on a domain without an SPF record (DuckDuckGo help). To write first from your personal Duck Address (jane@duck.com) to sam@example.com, send from your forwarding address to sam_at_example.com_jane@duck.com. DuckDuckGo documents this only for the personal address.
• Hide My Email: replies appear to come from the alias. In Mail on iPhone you can also send a new message from a fresh address, one recipient at a time (Apple Support).
• Fastmail: replies use the Masked Email address by default, and you can compose from one by choosing Show all in the From menu (Fastmail help).

Your own domain, catch-all, and apps

An alias on your own domain, such as shop@example.com, outlives any single service, because you can point the domain at another host. That’s the main reason to pay for custom-domain support. As of September 2026:

CatchNone reads own-domain mail straight from the mailbox your domain already delivers to, read-only from your device, so that mail never passes through CatchNone’s servers and there’s no forwarding to break. That works on the Free plan too.

If you’d rather not pay for an alias service, Cloudflare Email Routing has a catch-all rule that forwards every address on your domain, on the Workers Free plan. You still pay for the domain, and its DNS has to be on Cloudflare (Cloudflare Docs). It forwards; it isn’t a mailbox, and replying from your domain needs a separate sending setup.

What switching an alias off does

“Off” means different things:

• CatchNone: switch off a @catchnone.com address and senders get a bounce, while your other addresses keep working. On your own domain, marking an alias as not in use is a label, so block an address with a rule at your mail provider.
• addy.io: a deactivated alias silently discards new mail, while mail to a deleted one bounces back to the sender.
• Hide My Email: on iCloud.com, mail to an address you’ve stopped using is returned to the sender.
• Fastmail: Blocked sends mail to Trash, and Deleted bounces it, though you can restore a deleted address later.

A bounce tells a sender the address is dead; a quiet drop doesn’t.

The best email alias service for each need

Picks by need, as of September 2026:

• Keeping signup mail out of your main inbox, on iPhone, iPad, and Mac: CatchNone. Every signup gets its own address, each message is badged with the alias it reached, so a leak or a sold address shows up, and nothing is forwarded. With Premium, @catchnone.com addresses need no domain, DNS, or mailbox to set up.
• Your own domain, free, without forwarding: CatchNone’s Free plan, with up to 10 aliases read straight from your mailbox.
• Free, with replies: DuckDuckGo Email Protection, if you don’t mind creating addresses in DuckDuckGo’s browser or extension. It also removes hidden email trackers.
• Free, with mobile apps and browser extensions: SimpleLogin, or Proton Pass if you already use Proton.
• Inventing addresses for free: addy.io’s username subdomain. Replies need a paid plan.
• About $1 a month, with replies: Firefox Relay Premium ($0.99 billed yearly), addy.io Lite ($1 billed yearly), or Hide My Email through iCloud+ 50 GB ($0.99 billed monthly).
• Apple devices and an iCloud+ plan you already pay for: Hide My Email. See how Hide My Email compares with other aliases.
• Your own domain, a full mailbox, and replies: Fastmail, on any plan except business Basic.
• Your own domain, free, forwarding only: Cloudflare Email Routing’s catch-all rule. Replies need a separate sending setup.
• Many custom domains: CatchNone, which has no limit on domains on any plan, SimpleLogin Premium (unlimited), or addy.io Pro (20).

Alternatives to SimpleLogin, addy.io (AnonAddy), Firefox Relay, and DuckDuckGo

Each case starts from the feature you’re missing. As of September 2026:

• SimpleLogin Free, out of aliases: DuckDuckGo and addy.io have unlimited free addresses, and Relay has 50. Proton Pass on Proton Free has the same 10-alias cap. SimpleLogin Premium ($36 a year) removes it and includes Proton Pass’s premium features. If you sync SimpleLogin aliases into Proton Pass, Proton says the sync can’t be reversed. If you own a domain, CatchNone Lite and Premium have no limit on aliases there.
• addy.io Free, need to reply: SimpleLogin, Proton Pass, and DuckDuckGo let you reply for free. addy.io Lite adds 50 replies or sends a day.
• Firefox Relay Free, need to reply: the same three let you reply for free, and Relay Premium adds replies within 3 months of receiving a message.
• Firefox Relay or DuckDuckGo, need your own domain: CatchNone takes it on every plan, Free included, and reads the mail straight from your mailbox. SimpleLogin Premium, addy.io Lite or Pro, and Proton Pass paid plans take it, and all three have their own apps and extensions. Fastmail takes it too, as a full mailbox.

For the two most-compared services side by side, see addy.io vs SimpleLogin.

Addresses you make up at signup

Some services let you invent an address right at the signup form, with no app open; the alias is created when its first message arrives. 33mail and Spamgourmet have worked this way for years. On a catch-all domain, CatchNone does too: an address you made up at signup shows up under that address without being created first.

Is 33mail still working?

As of September 25, 2026, 33mail’s site, pricing, and help pages load, and its blog’s latest post is from February 2026. That shows the site is up; it doesn’t prove your mail is getting through. Addresses look like anything@you.33mail.com. The free plan allows 10 MB of mail over a rolling 30 days and shows ads. 33mail’s pricing table lists replies as paid: 20 a day on the $1-a-month Premium plan.

If 33mail isn’t working for you, send a test to one of your aliases from an address other than your forwarding address, as its FAQ suggests. The FAQ also says some providers block forwarded mail without putting it in spam, and suggests adding sender@mailer1.33mail.com to your contacts or a never-spam filter.

Is Spamgourmet shutting down?

Not as far as its site shows. On September 25, 2026, its homepage had no shutdown notice, and its signup form was on the page. The shutdown talk dates from August 2019. A notice from then survives only as hidden text in the page’s source, which some tools misread as live. Addresses look like someword.x.user@spamgourmet.com, where x is how many messages the address accepts (up to 20, or 3 if you leave it out). Later messages are discarded.

33mail and Spamgourmet alternatives

On your own domain, catch-all does the work. The cost is that typos and spam sent to invented addresses arrive too. A random email address generator keeps invented addresses from being guessable, so one site’s address doesn’t reveal the others.

What happens to your aliases if a service shuts down

Aliases on a service’s own domain last only as long as the service. Skiff is a recent example. On February 9, 2024, it announced that Notion had acquired it. It ended its services on August 9, 2024, and kept forwarding until February 9, 2025, for users who opted in. Anyone with aliases on Skiff’s domains had those months to change the address at every account. Aliases on your own domain move with you when you point the domain at a new host. With CatchNone, own-domain mail doesn’t depend on the app at all: it lands in your own mailbox, and CatchNone only reads it. Whether your own domain is worth it weighs the cost.

Firefox Relay promises advance notice if it closes, though Mozilla’s subscription terms let it end the service “at any time for any reason.” addy.io says someone is in place to keep it running if its owner can’t. 33mail says it “isn’t going anywhere.”

Here’s what happens when you stop paying or remove a domain, as of September 2026:

An exit plan takes four steps:

1. Keep a list of which alias you gave to which site. CatchNone can export yours as JSON, and on the addy.io website, you can export one as CSV: Settings → Account Data → Export Aliases → Export Alias Data.
2. Put accounts you can’t afford to lose, such as banking and account recovery, on an address you control: your main address or your own domain.
3. Before you cancel a plan, read the provider’s answer on what happens when a subscription ends. The table above links each one.
4. When you switch services, change the address at each account that matters first, then turn the old aliases off.

Where CatchNone fits

CatchNone is the receive-only reader in the first table, available for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Every signup gets its own address, alias mail stays in its own app, and each message is badged with the alias it reached, so a leak or a sold address shows up. Nothing is forwarded, so there’s no forwarding to break. Remote images, including most tracking pixels, stay blocked until you load them, and there’s no sign-up with an email or password.

With Premium, you can start right away on random @catchnone.com addresses such as abcde-12345@catchnone.com, with no domain, DNS, or mailbox to set up. The service assigns them and keeps each message for 30 days after it arrives, and switching one off makes senders get a bounce. Or use a domain you own: the app reads the mailbox your mail already lands in, read-only over IMAP or JMAP from your device, so that mail never passes through CatchNone’s servers. The Free plan covers 10 aliases there, and Lite and Premium are unlimited. On a catch-all domain, an address you made up at signup shows up without being created first.

CatchNone is receive-only by design, so reply from your usual account when you need to. On your own domain, you enter the server details yourself, the app reads the inbox only, and marking an alias as not in use is a label: block an address with a rule at your mail provider.

FAQ

Which email alias services are free?

As of September 2026, DuckDuckGo Email Protection is free outright, and CatchNone’s Free plan covers 10 aliases on your own domain. SimpleLogin and Proton Pass give you 10 aliases, Firefox Relay 50, and addy.io unlimited aliases on your username subdomain within 10 MB of mail a month. 33mail has a free plan with ads, and Spamgourmet is free. Fastmail and Hide My Email are paid only.

Which services give you unlimited aliases?

As of September 2026, DuckDuckGo and addy.io both give you unlimited aliases for free, with limits of another kind. DuckDuckGo calls its addresses “effectively unlimited” but caps how many you can create per day, and addy.io’s free plan allows 10 MB of mail a month and 10 new aliases an hour. On paid plans, CatchNone Lite and Premium (on your own domains), Firefox Relay Premium, SimpleLogin Premium, and Proton Pass Plus have unlimited aliases, and Apple says Hide My Email lets you create “as many addresses as you need.”

Are email aliases private and secure?

An alias keeps your real address away from the site, and you can turn one off without touching the others. The alias service still handles every message, so you’re trusting it with your mail. CatchNone on your own domain is the exception: your provider receives the mail, and the app reads it straight from your mailbox, so it never passes through CatchNone’s servers. DuckDuckGo says it never saves your emails, and Firefox Relay says it stores mail only during an outage, for at most three days. How to hide your email address covers what still identifies you.

Which alias services work with Bitwarden or 1Password?

Bitwarden’s username generator can create forwarded aliases with SimpleLogin, addy.io, Firefox Relay, Fastmail, Forward Email, and DuckDuckGo in most of its apps. Its mobile app supports SimpleLogin, addy.io, Forward Email, and Firefox Relay (Bitwarden help). Fastmail Masked Email also works from the 1Password browser extension.