Hide My Email vs Email Aliases: Limits and Alternatives

Apple’s Hide My Email is an iCloud+ feature that creates random @icloud.com addresses and forwards their mail to your inbox, so a site gets a working address without seeing your real one. Apple says you can create as many as you need, and you can reply from them in Apple Mail. What it can’t do is use your own domain, let you choose the address, or send different addresses to different inboxes: every address forwards to the one Forward To address you pick from your Apple Account. For those, you need a different kind of email alias. CatchNone is one: its aliases can use a domain you own, and every message shows which alias it reached, in its own app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Apple’s steps below are from its current support pages for iOS 27 and macOS 27, checked on September 25, 2026; the iPhone Settings steps are the same in iOS 18 and 26. Proton also calls its aliases “hide-my-email aliases”; this page is about Apple’s feature. If aliases are new to you, start with what an email alias is.

How Hide My Email works

1. When a form or app asks for your email address, or when you write a new email in Mail, you create a Hide My Email address instead. Apple generates it at random.
2. The site sends mail to that address.
3. Apple’s relay forwards it to your Forward To address: your iCloud Mail address or another address associated with your Apple Account. Apple says it deletes messages from its relay servers after delivery, “usually within seconds.”
4. When you reply in Mail on your Apple devices or on iCloud.com, the message appears to come from the Hide My Email address.

You can give each address a label and a note, and deactivate or delete it later. Apple keeps a list of every place you can create one. It needs iOS 15, iPadOS 15, or macOS 12 or later; Apple announced it in June 2021.

If mail to an address has stopped reaching you, see Hide My Email not forwarding.

How Sign in with Apple addresses differ

Sign in with Apple has its own Hide My Email option (Apple Support):

• Its addresses end in @privaterelay.appleid.com, and Apple says new ones will use @private.icloud.com starting later in 2026. Everywhere else, Hide My Email creates @icloud.com addresses.
• The address works only for the developer you signed up with. One address serves every app from that developer, and only mail from its designated senders is forwarded.
• It needs an Apple Account with two-factor authentication, and Apple lists no iCloud+ requirement (What is Sign in with Apple?).

How to create a Hide My Email address

Apple’s built-in way to “mask” your email address on iPhone is a Hide My Email address. There’s no separate generator: each address is random, and in Safari and on Mac a Refresh button offers a different one.

On iPhone or iPad

1. Open Settings and tap your name.
2. Tap iCloud, scroll down to iCloud+ Features, then tap Hide My Email.
3. Tap Create New Address, then follow the onscreen instructions.

You can also create one where you need it:

• Safari: tap the email field, tap Hide My Email above the keyboard, then tap Continue, or Refresh for a different address (iPhone User Guide).
• Supported apps (iOS 16 or later): the same button appears above the keyboard.
• Mail: tap Compose, add a recipient, tap the From field, tap it again, then tap Hide My Email (iPhone User Guide).
• Apple Pay (iOS 17 or later): tap Contact in the payment sheet, then choose Hide My Email (iCloud User Guide).

On Mac

These steps need macOS 13 or later.

1. Open System Settings and click your name at the top of the sidebar.
2. Click iCloud, then click Hide My Email.
3. Click Add (+) in the lower-left corner, and Refresh if you want a different address.
4. Enter a label and a note, click Continue, then follow the prompts and click Done.

In Safari, click an email field and choose Hide My Email (Mac User Guide). In Mail, start a new message, move the pointer over the From field, click the pop-up menu, then choose Hide My Email (Mail User Guide).

On iCloud.com, including from Windows or Android

1. Go to icloud.com/icloudplus and sign in.
2. Select Hide My Email.
3. Select Add, or “Set up a new email address” if you have none.
4. Enter a label, then select “Create email address.”

You need two-factor authentication to create an address there. If Hide My Email doesn’t appear, your account may have web-only access (Apple Support).

How to deactivate or delete a Hide My Email address

Deactivating stops an address from forwarding mail and can be undone. Deleting is permanent, and you can delete only an address you’ve deactivated first.

On iPhone or iPad

1. Go to Settings → [your name] → iCloud → Hide My Email.
2. Select the address, tap Deactivate Email Address, then tap Deactivate.

Later, from the same screen (Apple Support):

• Reactivate: tap Inactive Addresses, tap the address, tap Reactivate Address, then tap Reactivate.
• Delete: tap Inactive Addresses, select the address, tap Delete Address, then tap Delete.

On Mac or iCloud.com

On Mac:

1. In System Settings, click your name, click iCloud, then click Hide My Email.
2. Select the address, click Deactivate Email Address, then click Deactivate.

To reactivate or delete it later, click Options in the lower-left corner, then Show Inactive Addresses, select the address, and click Reactivate Address or Delete Address.

On iCloud.com:

1. Go to icloud.com/icloudplus and select Hide My Email.
2. Select the address, select “Deactivate email address,” then follow the onscreen instructions.

Inactive addresses are listed at the bottom, where you can reactivate or delete them. Wherever you delete an address, it’s removed from all your devices and can’t be reactivated (Apple Support).

What the sender sees

Apple says that when you stop using an address, “any emails sent to that address are returned to the sender.” So a deactivated address bounces, and the sender learns it no longer works. Apple doesn’t publish the bounce wording.

A deleted address isn’t given to anyone else. Apple’s Sign in with Apple privacy page says a deactivated and deleted Hide My Email address stays associated with your Apple Account for 30 days for abuse prevention. After that, it’s removed from your account and kept only so it can’t be reissued. Not every service bounces: addy.io silently discards mail to a deactivated alias.

Sign in with Apple addresses

Turn off forwarding for the app instead. On iPhone, go to Settings → [your name] → iCloud → Hide My Email, select the app or developer, then turn off Forward To. Apple’s relay then rejects mail sent to that address. If one developer makes several apps you use, the change applies to all of them (Apple Support).

Hide My Email limit: how many addresses can you have?

Apple publishes no number. Its guides say you can create “as many addresses as you need,” but the iCloud Terms and Conditions (last revised September 14, 2026) say “Apple reserves the right to limit the number of email addresses available under this feature.” Users report being stopped at totals of 720 to 1,047 addresses, and blocked for a while after creating many in a short time.

The two messages differ. The temporary one reads “You’ve hit the limit of addresses you can create right now. Try again later.” The hard stop is titled “Email Address Limit Reached” and says “Go to Settings to delete one before creating another.” These are reports, not Apple policy:

If you hit the total, delete addresses you no longer use. Apple doesn’t document how deleted ones are counted. The one related number Apple does publish is for Sign in with Apple: “a daily limit of 100 emails” per relay address, replies included (Apple Developer). It gives no such figure for @icloud.com addresses.

Is Hide My Email free, and can you use it without iCloud+?

Only as part of iCloud+. The @icloud.com addresses need iCloud+, and every tier includes them. In the US, as of September 2026, iCloud+ starts at $0.99 a month for 50 GB (Apple’s prices by country). Apple One includes iCloud+, and if someone in your Family Sharing group has iCloud+, you get Hide My Email too.

Without iCloud+, you still have Sign in with Apple’s Hide My Email option and up to three iCloud Mail aliases, which aren’t an iCloud+ feature.

If you cancel iCloud+, you lose access to Hide My Email when the billing period ends (Apple Support). Apple doesn’t say whether existing addresses keep forwarding, so change the address on accounts you care about before you cancel.

Is Hide My Email safe, and can it be traced to you?

It keeps your address from the sites you give it to, not from Apple.

• Your mail. Apple says it doesn’t read or process message content except for standard spam filtering.
• Legal requests. Apple knows which account owns each address. Its US Legal Process Guidelines say basic customer information for Hide My Email “can be obtained with a subpoena or greater legal process.”
• A fixed flaw. A message sent to a Hide My Email address and rejected as spam could put the person’s real address in the sender’s mail logs. It was reported to Apple in June 2025, and Apple says it was fully fixed in a patch on July 3, 2026 (MacRumors). Two researchers quoted by MacRumors say they would assume that the real address behind any Hide My Email address created before July 7, 2026, may have been exposed. A lawsuit seeking class-action status is pending.
• Tracking. Apple doesn’t describe Hide My Email as blocking tracking pixels. In Apple Mail, that’s Mail Privacy Protection.

The site still holds a working address it can leak or sell. The difference is that you can switch that one address off.

Can Hide My Email use a custom domain?

No. As of September 2026, iCloud+ has a separate feature for that, Custom Email Domain: up to five domains you own, with up to three addresses per domain that send and receive in iCloud Mail (Apple Support). Its Allow All setting works as a catch-all, so shop@example.com, made up at checkout, still arrives. See iCloud+ Custom Email Domain with a catch-all.

Outside Apple, a catch-all rule in Cloudflare Email Routing forwards every address on your domain to one inbox, free for inbound mail as of September 2026. Replying from your domain needs a separate sending setup. Either way, CatchNone can read the mailbox that mail lands in over IMAP or JMAP, and it shows each made-up address’s mail under that address.

What changed with the Hide My Email domain in 2026

June 15, 2026. Apple announced that new Sign in with Apple and iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses would be issued on one shared domain, private.icloud.com, while existing addresses kept working.

June 17, 2026. MacRumors pointed out that a separate domain would let sites block Hide My Email addresses without blocking every icloud.com user.

August 24, 2026. Apple reversed the plan, giving only “further consideration and reviewing community feedback” as the reason. Its update says “iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com.” Only new Sign in with Apple addresses move from privaterelay.appleid.com to private.icloud.com, “starting later this year,” and existing ones keep working (Apple Developer News).

As of September 25, 2026, pages saying Hide My Email has moved are out of date. There’s nothing for you to change: your Hide My Email addresses keep working on icloud.com.

What Hide My Email can’t do

• Let you choose the address. Every address is random.
• Keep each address’s mail apart. It only forwards, and every address goes to the same Forward To address. You can make that a secondary address on your Apple Account, but all Hide My Email mail lands there together.
• Show mail or counts per address. Mail on iCloud.com has an “Only Hide My Email” filter, but it groups all of it together, and it works only when you forward to iCloud Mail or a custom-domain address. Labels, notes, and search help; Apple documents no per-address view or statistics.
• Write to several people at once. A message sent from a Hide My Email address goes to one recipient.

Hide My Email vs other email aliases

As of September 2026:

Hide My Email vs an iCloud Mail alias

Both end in @icloud.com. An iCloud Mail alias is a second address on your own mailbox: you choose it, you get up to three (as of September 2026), and it sends and receives like your main address. Aliases can’t be changed or transferred, and if you have three and delete one, you wait 7 days before you can create another (Apple Support). Use an iCloud Mail alias for a readable address you give to people, and Hide My Email for one address per site.

Hide My Email vs CatchNone

Both give each signup its own address. Here’s how they differ, as of September 2026:

• Where mail goes: Hide My Email forwards every address to one Forward To address, where it lands with the rest of your mail. CatchNone forwards nothing: signup mail stays in its own app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and each message is badged with the alias it reached, so a leak or a sold address shows up.
• Own domain and catch-all: Hide My Email has neither. CatchNone reads a domain you own, catch-all included, straight from its mailbox over IMAP or JMAP, so that mail never passes through CatchNone’s servers. With Premium, it also gives you random @catchnone.com addresses, with no domain, DNS, or mailbox to set up.
• How many: Apple publishes no cap. CatchNone’s Free plan includes up to 10 aliases on your own domain, and Lite and Premium have no limit there.
• Turning one off: mail to a deactivated Hide My Email address is returned to the sender, and so is mail to a switched-off @catchnone.com address. On your own domain, block an address with a rule at your provider.
• Replies: Hide My Email lets you reply in Apple Mail. CatchNone is receive-only by design, so you answer from your usual account, which shows your real address.

Free alternatives, as of September 2026: CatchNone’s Free plan covers up to 10 aliases on a domain you own. Forwarding services such as DuckDuckGo Email Protection, addy.io, SimpleLogin, Proton Pass, and Firefox Relay have free tiers too; see email alias services compared.

Hide My Email alternatives: when to stay, and what to add

Stay with Hide My Email if most of your signups happen in Safari, apps, and Apple Pay on your own devices, you already pay for iCloud+, and you want the mail in your usual inbox with replies. None of the other options is built into Apple’s keyboard, payment sheet, and Sign in with Apple.

For iPhone and Mac users, the best alternative is usually an addition, chosen by what’s missing:

• Signup mail kept out of your main inbox, with each message shown and counted under the address it reached: CatchNone.
• A readable address you choose: an iCloud Mail alias.
• Addresses that outlive any one service, or that you make up on the spot: your own domain with a catch-all, which CatchNone can read.
• Aliases created from an Android app or a browser extension: a forwarding service.

Keep your bank, your tax accounts, and your Apple Account itself on an address you’ll always control.

What CatchNone adds to Hide My Email

CatchNone, the app behind this Journal, keeps each signup’s mail apart, which is the part Hide My Email can’t do. You give each shop or newsletter its own named alias, and every 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. Start with random @catchnone.com addresses on Premium, with no domain, DNS, or mailbox to set up; switch one off and senders get a bounce. Or use a domain you own whose mail already reaches a mailbox you can read: the Free plan includes up to 10 aliases, and Lite and Premium have no limit. The app reads that mailbox’s inbox read-only over IMAP or JMAP, directly from your device, so the mail never passes through CatchNone’s servers.

CatchNone is receive-only: it never sends, replies, or forwards, so keep Hide My Email for accounts where you reply. It isn’t connected to Hide My Email and can’t read or manage its addresses. CatchNone’s service keeps each @catchnone.com message for 30 days, with per-account limits listed in the Terms. Download CatchNone, available for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

FAQ

Where do Hide My Email messages go?

To your Forward To address, the same one for every Hide My Email address; there’s no separate Hide My Email mailbox. To change it on iPhone, go to Settings → [your name] → iCloud → Hide My Email, tap Forward To, and choose an address on your Apple Account. Pointing it at a secondary address keeps that mail out of your main inbox.

Does Hide My Email work with Gmail?

Yes, for receiving, if your Gmail address is associated with your Apple Account: add it at account.apple.com, then choose it under Forward To. Apple documents replying as the Hide My Email address only in Apple Mail and Mail on iCloud.com. It doesn’t document what the recipient sees when you reply from Gmail, so don’t assume your real address stays private. If forwarded mail goes missing or lands in Spam, see why Hide My Email isn’t forwarding.

Why is Hide My Email missing on my iPhone?

Check that you’re signed in to iCloud with an Apple Account that has iCloud+ (yours or shared through Family Sharing), that the iPhone runs iOS 15 or later, and that iCloud+ features are offered in your country or region. On iCloud.com you also need two-factor authentication to create an address, and an account with web-only access won’t show Hide My Email.

Why does Hide My Email keep coming up?

It’s the suggestion Safari and supported apps show above the keyboard when you tap an email field. You can ignore it and type any address.