Junk Email Address: What to Use for Signups and Newsletters

A junk email address is a second address you give to shops, newsletters, and one-off signups, so their mail stays out of your main inbox. It isn’t your junk folder, where your provider files spam (Gmail calls that folder Spam; Outlook calls it the Junk Email folder). There are four usual ways to get one:

• One alias per signup, from an alias app such as CatchNone on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, an alias service, or your own domain: the most reliable way to see which company leaked your address, and the only one that lets you cut off just that address.
• A spare mailbox, such as a second Gmail account: free, separate, and it can send.
• A plus tag on your main address, such as jane+news@example.com: no setup, but the mail lands in your main inbox.
• A public temp inbox, such as Maildrop: instant, but anyone can read it.

For most people, the best junk email address to use is a pair: a spare mailbox for the few accounts you keep and need to write back from, and one alias per shop or newsletter for everything that sends marketing. A temp inbox is only for a one-off download, never for an account with a password. The steps, prices, and policies below were checked on September 25, 2026.

Should you have a junk email address for signups?

Usually, yes. The FTC puts the reason plainly: “When you give a company your email address, it might share or sell it to third parties” (FTC). A separate email for junk mail keeps that mail, and the spam that follows a sale or a breach, away from the inbox you use for people, work, and your bank.

A junk address is the right place for:

• shops, loyalty programs, and receipts (what to give stores that ask for your email)
• newsletters and free downloads
• forums, apps, and trials you may not keep
• Wi-Fi sign-in pages and contest entries

Two rules decide the rest. First, anything you’ll keep, social media included, needs an address you’ll still control years from now. A temp inbox fails that test: a password reset you request next year would land in a public inbox, if the service is still running. Second, some accounts never belong on a junk address at all; see what should never go on a junk address.

The best junk email address to use depends on the job

How to start with one alias per signup

Alias services forward to the inbox you register with them, so register your spare mailbox; otherwise the marketing mail still reaches your main inbox, just under another address. Four quick ways to start, as of September 2026:

• CatchNone: nothing is forwarded. With Premium, you create a random @catchnone.com address in seconds, with no domain, DNS, or mailbox to set up; on a domain you own, the Free plan includes up to 10 aliases. Each message is badged with the alias it reached.
• Sign in with Apple: when a site or app offers it, choose Hide My Email. That app gets its own random address, which forwards to the email on your Apple Account (Apple Support). Changing where it forwards, or making Hide My Email addresses for other sites, needs iCloud+.
• DuckDuckGo Email Protection: free. It makes a new address whenever you need one and removes several kinds of hidden trackers before forwarding.
• SimpleLogin: the free plan has 10 aliases and lets you reply from an alias.

Is a second Gmail account enough?

For many people, yes: it’s the first half of the pair above, and enough on its own if you sign up for little and don’t need to know who leaks your address. A second Google Account is free, has its own password, includes up to 15 GB of storage shared across Gmail, Drive, and Photos as of September 2026 (Google One Help), and can send, which matters on marketplaces where you write back to buyers.

A spare Gmail stops being enough in two situations:

• You want to know who leaked your address. Every signup shares one address, one inbox, and one password. That’s the problem in the next section.
• You forget about it. Google can delete a personal account that hasn’t been used for two years. See how to keep a spare account open.

How to make a spare email address with Gmail

On a computer:

1. Sign out of your main Google Account. Google asks you to do this first (Gmail Help).
2. Go to the Google Account sign-in page, click Create account, and choose For my personal use. Google may ask you to verify a phone number.
3. In the new account, go to Google Account → Security & sign-in → How you sign in to Google → Recovery email, and enter your main address. Google’s inactivity warnings then reach an inbox you actually read.
4. On the same Security & sign-in page, under How you sign in to Google, select Turn on 2-Step Verification and follow the on-screen steps (Google Account Help).
5. Add your main account back: select the profile picture at the top right, then Add account. You can then switch between the two without signing out.

Forward only what you need to your main inbox

You can’t pull a new spare into your main Gmail: “Check mail from other accounts” (POP) takes no new setups, and Google removes it from Gmail on a computer in January 2027 (Gmail Help). To see some of the spare’s mail in your main inbox, forward it. Forwarding everything brings the flood back, so forward only what you need, such as receipts. In the spare Gmail on a computer:

1. Go to Settings → See all settings → Forwarding and POP/IMAP → Add a forwarding address, and enter your main address.
2. Open the verification message Gmail sends to your main address, and confirm.
3. Keep automatic forwarding off, and create a filter for those messages with the action Forward it (Gmail Help).

Sending as the spare from your main Gmail still works: Google removes “Send as” only for third-party addresses such as @yahoo.com or @outlook.com, in January 2027, so send from those on the provider’s own site or app (Gmail Help). For how many mailboxes you really need, see how many email accounts you should have.

The downside of one shared junk address

One junk address for everything moves the spam to another inbox without telling you where it came from. When a spam wave starts, every shop, forum, and newsletter you gave that address to is a suspect. You can’t cut off the one that sold it without changing the address everywhere, and a single password guards the password resets for all of them.

One alias per company fixes all but the password problem. If strangers write to the alias you gave one shop, the leak came from that shop or from someone it shared its list with, and you can shut that one address off and leave the rest alone. That holds only when the alias can’t be guessed: on a catch-all, anyone who knows your domain can invent shop@example.com, so use random-looking aliases there and keep the shop’s name in a note. And if every alias forwards to one mailbox, that mailbox still needs a strong, unique password and 2-step verification.

Plus tags sort the mail but reveal your real address

Google suggests tags in its own help: a +news tag “to sign up for newsletters” and +shopping for online retailers, then a filter per tag (Gmail Help). In Gmail, searching deliveredto: followed by the tagged address shows which tag a message arrived on.

The tag is written in plain sight, though: anyone who sees jane+news@example.com can delete everything between the + and the @ and get your real address. Some signup forms also reject the +, and in Gmail, dots don’t make a new address either. The details for each provider are in the guide to plus addressing in Gmail, Outlook, and iCloud.

The best email for newsletters you subscribe to

Newsletters are the easiest part of junk mail to fix, because you chose them.

Give each newsletter its own address

A separate email for newsletters helps; a tag or an alias per newsletter helps more. It lets you file each one automatically and spot a publisher that shares its list. With a tag in Gmail on a computer:

1. Subscribe as jane+news@example.com.
2. In the search box, click Show search options, enter that address in To, and click Create filter.
3. Select Apply the label and pick or create a Newsletters label, select Skip the Inbox (Archive it), then click Create filter (Gmail Help).

With an alias, leaving no longer depends on the unsubscribe link: switch the address off or, if it’s on a catch-all domain, block it with a rule at your mail provider.

Read them in an RSS reader

Check for a feed first. Substack publications, for example, serve one when you add /feed to the publication’s address. For the rest, these tools give you an email address that turns mail into feed entries (prices as of September 2026):

• Kill the Newsletter: free and open source, with an Atom feed per address. Entries older than one month are deleted, lists that ask you to reply to confirm won’t work, and some publishers block it. Keep the feed private: anyone who has it can unsubscribe you.
• Feedbin: $7 a month or $70 a year, with a 30-day trial; every account gets its own address for newsletters.
• Inoreader: newsletter feeds are part of Pro, at $7.50 a month billed annually or $9.99 billed monthly.

Whether tracking images load in a feed depends on your feed reader’s image settings.

Read without open tracking

Newsletters often carry a tiny remote image that tells the sender when you opened the message. Two settings reduce that: in Gmail, set Images to Ask before displaying external images (Gmail Help); on iPhone, turn on Protect Mail Activity under Settings → Apps → Mail → Privacy Protection (Apple Support). Neither covers links, and Google says that when images do load, senders may sometimes know you opened the message. What a pixel reveals, and what blocks it in other apps, is in email pixel tracking explained.

When you want out

Use the sender’s own unsubscribe first. In the US, CAN-SPAM gives a sender 10 business days to honor an opt-out (FTC). If a list is still writing after that, switch off its alias or filter its tag to Trash; why unsubscribe doesn’t work covers the rest.

What happens when the junk account gets breached or closed

Three things can go wrong with the junk account: the address leaks, someone gets into the mailbox, or the account closes and the name may pass to someone else. Each needs its own response.

The address turns up in a breach

Have I Been Pwned lists more than 17 billion breached accounts across more than 1,000 breaches as of September 2026. Search your junk address there, and sign it up for Notify Me: the verification message lands in the junk inbox, which also proves you can still get in.

An exposed address mostly means more spam. Expect phishing too: if your bank and your doctor have only your main address, as they should, a message to the junk address that claims to come from them is a scam. If a password leaked with the address, change that password everywhere you used it.

Someone gets into the mailbox

Act on this one first. The junk mailbox receives the password resets for every account you signed up with it, so, as the FTC warns, an intruder can reset those passwords and “lock you out of the account” (FTC).

Recover it through your provider (for a spare Gmail, Google’s account recovery steps), then run the hacked-account checks: new password, sign out everywhere, two-factor, recovery details, forwarding rules, and Sent and Deleted. Warn anyone you’ve written to from that address, such as marketplace buyers, to ignore recent messages from it.

Then change the passwords of the accounts that use the junk address. The UK’s NCSC advises a strong, separate password for email and 2-step verification for the same reason (NCSC): the mail may be junk, but the account isn’t.

The account closes, or the name goes to someone else

A spare mailbox you never open can disappear, taking your password resets with it. Google can delete an account after two years without use, Outlook.com closes an inbox after a year without a sign-in to that inbox, and Yahoo can close an inactive account and recycle the username (details by provider). A deleted Gmail address can’t be used by anyone again.

A recycled address is the worst case: any old account that still lists it would send its password resets to the next owner. Put a sign-in on your calendar, and keep your main address as the junk account’s recovery email so the warnings reach you.

What should never go on a junk address

Even Mozilla, which makes aliases for signups, says “you’d want to share your true email address with your bank, your doctor, and your lawyer, as well as when receiving concert or flight boarding passes” (Firefox Relay FAQ). Keep these on your main address or a domain you own:

• Finance, health, and legal: your bank, cards, taxes, health care, and lawyer, and anything that verifies your identity.
• Anything that holds or moves money: payment apps, brokerage accounts, and crypto accounts. Don’t save a card on shop accounts that use the junk address.
• Your main account’s recovery email: Google advises choosing “an email address you use regularly but not the one you use to sign in to your Google Account” (Google Account Help). A junk inbox you rarely open fails the first half.
• Accounts you’d have to prove are yours years from now: your Apple Account, your password manager, domain registrations, work, school, and government services.
• Tickets and travel: a missed message can cost you the booking.

One alias per signup with CatchNone

CatchNone replaces the single junk bucket with one named alias per shop, newsletter, or account, all read in one app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, with each message badged by the alias it reached. When strangers write to one alias, you know that address got out, whether it was shared, sold, or breached. Random @catchnone.com addresses, such as abcde-12345@catchnone.com, need Premium and no domain, DNS, or mailbox to set up; switch one off and senders get a bounce, while your other addresses keep working. On a domain you already own, the Free plan includes up to 10 aliases, and Lite and Premium have no limit. Your provider must already deliver the domain’s mail, usually through a catch-all, to a mailbox the app reads over IMAP or JMAP, so that mail never passes through CatchNone’s servers. To block an address there, use a rule at your provider.

CatchNone is receive-only: it never sends, replies, or forwards, so keep a spare mailbox for anything you answer, such as marketplace buyers. Each @catchnone.com message is kept for 30 days after it arrives, so keep accounts you’ll hold for years on your own domain or main address. Download CatchNone, available for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

FAQ

Can I have a second email address?

Yes. A new account with a free provider gives you a separate mailbox, and Google lets you stay signed in to several Google Accounts and switch between them without signing out (Google Account Help). An extra email address on the account you already have isn’t a second bucket, though. Mail to iCloud Mail aliases (up to three) arrives in your primary inbox by default, and a Microsoft account alias is another username on the same account.

Is a temp inbox OK for signups?

Only for a site you’ll never sign in to again. Maildrop’s privacy policy says “Any message sent to Maildrop can be read by any user,” so a password reset sent there can be opened by anyone who types the same name, and an inbox is cleared after 24 hours without new mail (Maildrop). The guide to temp inboxes and whether they can be traced covers the rest.

What is a secondary email address?

Usually it means a recovery email: a second address your provider uses to reach you if you’re locked out. It isn’t a junk address, and it shouldn’t be one. Use your main address as the junk account’s recovery email, never the other way around.

What should I name a junk email address?

For a spare mailbox, pick a username without your full name or birth year, since it will sit on marketing lists for years. On a public temp inbox, Maildrop suggests including the site’s name so you know “immediately which sites are suspect”; add a few random characters too, as in shop-k7x2, since anyone who guesses the name can open the inbox. On your own catch-all domain, use a random address: shop@example.com is easy to guess, so spam to it proves little. A plus tag can carry the name, as in jane+shoes@example.com, but it also shows your main address.