Ask HN: How to proxify emails?

#1

Post by whoshallsucceed » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 12:28 PM UTC

I'm running a store platform for which buyers coordinates are sensitive. In order to prevent sellers to store the buyers coordinates to be independent, I am looking for ways to alias phone numbers and emails.

So far, I've found Twilio which seems great for SMS and Call with Virtual Phone Numbers.

But I can't find a similar way for emails. Is there any I missed?

Re: Ask HN: How to proxify emails?

#2

Post by TobyGiacometti » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 3:26 PM UTC

For email forwarding, you can have a look at https://github.com/danisola/forward-cat. However, I do not know if this would work for your setup. On top of that, I do not think it handles replies to the email alias, but I am not sure.

What could work is to just use an internal system for messaging, so that each of your users has a private inbox in your store platform. Kind of like direct messaging in a forum...

Re: Ask HN: How to proxify emails?

#3

Post by tretiy3 » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 9:24 PM UTC

you can use mailgun for that. it has an api and concepts of "routes". you will be able to intercept email from seller@seller_domain.com to buyer@your_domain.com, handle it in your app (mailgun will POST to your web app), and then send from seller@your_domain.com to buyer@buyer_domain.com. really transparent. you can tweak any part of the workflow. have all conversations and all stats in your app.

Re: Ask HN: How to proxify emails?

#4

Post by whoshallsucceed » Wed, Mar 29, 2017, 8:27 AM UTC

TobyGiacometti wrote: post #2

For email forwarding, you can have a look at https://github.com/danisola/forward-cat . However, I do not know if this would work for your setup. On top of that, I do not think it handles replies to the email alias, but I am not sure. What could work is to just use an internal system for messaging, so that each of your users has a private inbox in your store platform. Kind of like direct messaging in a forum...

Thanks for following up but they lack an API which is mandatory for my needs.

Re: Ask HN: How to proxify emails?

#5

Post by whoshallsucceed » Wed, Mar 29, 2017, 8:29 AM UTC

tretiy3 wrote: post #3

you can use mailgun for that. it has an api and concepts of "routes". you will be able to intercept email from seller@seller_domain.com to buyer@your_domain.com, handle it in your app (mailgun will POST to your web app), and then send from seller@your_domain.com to buyer@buyer_domain.com. really transparent. you can tweak any part of the workflow. have all conversations and all stats in your app.

Yes, I found out after a while. I ended up doing just that. Last thing to figure out is how to send the mail as is, meaning for now I pick the HMTL part and send it setting the content type. But this way lacks the Text version of the email.

I'll keep digging up.

Thanks for following up!