Temporary email addresses: what are they used for?

These days, 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. That's where the temporary e-mail address comes in.

Temporary e-mail address

What is a temporary e-mail address?

Your electronic inbox Are you receiving hundreds of unsolicited messages (spam)? If you want to avoid this, you should know that a temporary or disposable email address is an electronic messaging service that allows you to receive emails that self-destruct a few minutes or hours after they have been created. But be warned: disposable email addresses also carry risks, and we'll come back to this later.

Why use disposable e-mail addresses

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

Where to create a temporary e-mail address

There is more than one temporary email address service, but some are unreliable. Read the reviews of disposable email address providers before taking the plunge. For our part, we can mention a few reliable sites:

• YOPmail, the most popular disposable email 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 email addresses are very useful for short-term use. The first disadvantage is that they cannot be used over the long term. Temporary email addresses, as their names suggest, are for limited use only. You can't use them to chat with friends, colleagues or family, because the emails are deleted after a while.

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 behaviour.

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 The third concerns security and confidentiality. A disposable email address is not designed to be a primary email address, there is 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 email addresses can be advantageous if you use them to receive a confirmation email for registering on a site, or to obtain a quote or a price estimate. It protects your inbox from spam and piracy. But a temporary address cannot be used in the long term: you cannot send an email to your customer for fear that it will be deleted. Beware also that they are less secure.