And did you find you got much spam to non-existent addresses? I used to use a catch-all setup, and got a large amount of spam, but that must have been 25ish years ago.
Very little. Could also be that Fastmail has good filtering.
Thanks. I find Fastmail a little worse than Google in terms of spam, but that could just be fluctuations in the amount of spam in general after changing service. (I'm noticing more spam in my work email recently, which uses Google Workspace, too).
Not quite randomuser.me, but 1Password integrates with Fastmail to generate masked emails on the fly. https://1password.com/fastmail/
Yeah, I tried that for a while, and I have some Apple generated forwarders too. In the end in places like a store that wants you to sign-up for X% off, or something it's easier to just to give them storename@domain.com and see what happens. It's actually pretty low friction in terms of management.
As I said elsewhere in the comments here, I didn't like the xxx.xxx@fastmail.com format of masked emails because if you're using a custom domain and you have 200 logins using masked email addresses, then want to change your email service, you have go through those 200 services updating the email address for each one. I'm trying the same setup as you suggest above on the basis that Fastmail allows you to block specific email addresses in case you start getting lots of spam to a specific address through the catch-all.
I’ve been using addy.io for quite some time now. I have a burner tld and every time I sign up for something new I input servicename@mytld.com. Addy forwards that email to the email I have chosen. Works doubly better if you don’t use gmail as your inbox.
Yeah, I tried that for a while, and I have some Apple generated forwarders too. In the end in places like a store that wants you to sign-up for X% off, or something it's easier to just to give them storename@domain.com and see what happens. It's actually pretty low friction in terms of management.
As I said elsewhere in the comments here, I didn't like the xxx.xxx@fastmail.com format of masked emails because if you're using a custom domain and you have 200 logins using masked email addresses, then want to change your email service, you have go through those 200 services updating the email address for each one. I'm trying the same setup as you suggest above on the basis that Fastmail allows you to block specifi…
Yes, custom domain future proofs it. You can route that domain’s email to any servers via MX records.
I have put in some blocks before where services don’t let you unsubscribe.
Currently I use Fastmail to host my own domain, and then for every new service I save the account in 1Password using service@service.mydomain.com It's a bit extreme, but surprisingly little extra effort. That said, most of the accounts I create are throwaway. For phone numbers I have an old, unused Google voice number I give out. It's a real number, but never checked, except for once every 90? days, to keep it active…
I've been thinking of running a setup like this specifically to rat out who's been selling my e-mail addresses, since the spam would be directed at the service@service.mydomain.com. Did you find any interesting results from your setup? Some surprising services who sold your address?
Not GP but I have the same set up and have only had a couple times where I received unexpected emails to an inbox. One was from GitHub profile scraping, can't remember what the other one was.
One of the surprisingly useful areas is with deliveries. Emails from delivery companies (especially from abroad) often don't specify what it is they're delivering or who it's from. But with this set up I can easily check that with the email address they're sending to, to know who it's from
This is ummm... news? I thought since the spam floods of the early 2000s everyone knew not to put their real email to get that 5€ off coupon. Of course tracking is a thing now too. But most people I know, even non techies are aware of that and very reluctant to give any information.
I've found fastmail's masked email to be a great solution to this. I don't give any services my primary address these days.
I tried this, but the thing I didn't like about it was that it ties you into Fastmail. I like using a custom domain so it's relatively easy to change your email provider, but masked emails are in the format xxx.xxx@fastmail.com so you'd need to revisit all of those accounts if you want to change your email provider to someone else. I'm currently trying using a catch-all with servicename@mydomain.com, and will be inte…
I get that. If (and when) I change email providers it'll be a pain. My gripe with a custom domain is that it'd uniquely identify me. I prefer to hide behind fastmail.
Currently I use Fastmail to host my own domain, and then for every new service I save the account in 1Password using service@service.mydomain.com It's a bit extreme, but surprisingly little extra effort. That said, most of the accounts I create are throwaway. For phone numbers I have an old, unused Google voice number I give out. It's a real number, but never checked, except for once every 90? days, to keep it active…
Would one problem with your domain approach be that it’s less anonymous to mailers than if you used a relay services where many users with random email addresses shared the same relay domain?