Temporary e-mail addresses: what are they used for?

Today, having an e-mail address is essential on the web, as it enables you to register on sites, follow blogs or even make online purchases. Unfortunately, giving out your e-mail address is not without risk, since some sites are not honest and may sell your personal information to marketing companies or, worse still, spammers. This is where the temporary e-mail address comes in.

Temporary e-mail address

What is a temporary e-mail address?

Your electronic inbox receive hundreds of unsolicited messages (spam or junk mail)? If you want to avoid this, you should know that a temporary or disposable e-mail address is an electronic messaging service that allows you to receive mail that self-destructs a few minutes or hours after creation. But be warned: disposable e-mail addresses also entail risks, which we'll come back to later.

Why use disposable e-mail addresses

As we've already seen in the definition, the function of an e-mail address can be to avoid being drowned out by spam. But that's not all: you can sign up to websites using a disposable e-mail address. Some sites send you a confirmation e-mail, so all you have to do is go to your disposable mailbox and click on the link in the confirmation e-mail. This way, you limit the risk of your main inbox being hacked and your personal data corrupted. What's more, you don't have to keep unimportant e-mails for too long. You can also use disposable email addresses to obtain price estimates that require you to receive an email, and even to carry out an online price study.

Where to create a temporary e-mail address

There's more than one temporary e-mail address service out there, but some are unreliable. Read reviews of disposable e-mail address providers before taking the plunge. For our part, we can mention a few reliable sites:

• YOPmail, the most popular disposable e-mail address creation service with an accessible mailbox.
• Trashmail, mail forwarding service, you need to link your main mailbox to receive your emails.
• Maildrop, disposable mail creation service with an accessible mailbox.

The disadvantages of disposable e-mail addresses

Temporary e-mail addresses are very useful for short-term use. The first disadvantage is that they can't be used on a long-term basis. Temporary e-mail addresses, as their names suggest, are for limited use only. You can't use them to chat with friends, colleagues or family, since emails are deleted after a certain period of time.

The second disadvantage is that some websites block the use of temporary e-mail, as these services are often interpreted as abusive and/or malicious behavior.

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 The third concerns security and confidentiality. A disposable e-mail address is not designed to be a primary e-mail address, there's no encryption and no advanced protection against online threats. Your information can then be corrupted, such as your IP address or online usage details (which sites you visit, for example).

To sum up

The use of temporary e-mail addresses can be advantageous if you use them to receive a confirmation e-mail for a site registration, or to obtain a quote or price estimate. It also protects your inbox from spam and hacking. But a temporary address can't be used in the long term: you can't send an email to your customer for fear it will be deleted. Beware, too, that they are less secure.