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How to use the Bitwarden forwarded email alias generator

bitwarden.com

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Re: How to use the Bitwarden forwarded email alias generator

#51

How do you send email or reply from the alias that you create?

It depends on the alias service you use (this appears to just give you another frontend to your alias service, eg, Addy.io or Firefox Relay). I know with Addy.io, forwarded emails have a special "Reply-To" header which is an address that Addy.io monitors and will forward your response back to the original sender. So replying to email delivered to your alias isn't a problem, though I think initiating an email from an…

It’s possible to initiate from Addy as well. For example, if your Addy alias is example@mailer.me and you wish to email hn@gmail.com then you would send an email to example+hn=gmail.com@mailer.me from the email address registered to the Addy account.

The Addy app has a utility to generate this, too.

Re: How to use the Bitwarden forwarded email alias generator

#52
post #42
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, the value of using aliases on my own domain isn't anonymity, it's provenance; I can tell where my email was obtained from based on the the prefix used. If I get an email sent to git@ , I know that someone (or something) was looking at git logs to get it, if it's sent to resume@ , I know someone got it from my resume, etc.

I bet no spammer or salesperson would ever think of replacing such a generic localpart to get to your eyeballs.

I've used @domain.com for many many years and never had someone do that.

Spammers simply obtain lists of emails through hacking or purchasing them and then spam them, they don't pick a particular address and modify it.

Re: How to use the Bitwarden forwarded email alias generator

#53
post #9

It's been like this for years. However, with one of my own domains and a catch all rule in the e-mail server. Why? From time to time, some services require that you send emails with exactly this e-mail address as the sender. And that doesn't just work with most services. Because in such a case, you have to turn exactly this e-mail address into a real account with a mailbox.

In principle, someone seeing heido15wkj6@yourraredomain.com, yua16ooaaj2@yourraredomain.com, and kqoq91inhi4@yourraredomain.com in a dump might be able to infer that all of these belong to the same user with a catchall address (especially if they can verify that the domain is unpopular via dns caching or other tricks). Using a common service adds another partial layer of anonymity between the email addresses, making…

Especially necessary when your domain is your full name. It's painfully obvious that all addresses under the domain belong to a single person. I've been using Fastmail's masked email service for a while to hide my personal domain. And before that I had a handful of gmail addresses that I set to forward to my main address.

Re: How to use the Bitwarden forwarded email alias generator

#54
post #52
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet no spammer or salesperson would ever think of replacing such a generic localpart to get to your eyeballs.

I've used @domain.com for many many years and never had someone do that. Spammers simply obtain lists of emails through hacking or purchasing them and then spam them, they don't pick a particular address and modify it.

Spammers who just blast stuff out won't do it, I'm sure.

But as a counterpoint it literally happened to me to me years ago when I used to use name+@exmaple.com. I got cold emails to 'name+paypal' despite never, ever having used that localpart. I've no doubt it was absolutely targetted and not a hit-and-hope spamblast but it was enough of a wake-up call for me to realise it couldn't really be relied on.

Re: How to use the Bitwarden forwarded email alias generator

#56
post #22
post #9

It's been like this for years. However, with one of my own domains and a catch all rule in the e-mail server. Why? From time to time, some services require that you send emails with exactly this e-mail address as the sender. And that doesn't just work with most services. Because in such a case, you have to turn exactly this e-mail address into a real account with a mailbox.

Not necessarily. You can for example configure both Thunderbird and mailcow to allow you to reply from any address (of the domains you manage, of course), without having to create the mailbox.

Creating a mailbox is effortless. At least at my web host.

Re: How to use the Bitwarden forwarded email alias generator

#57
post #14
post #9

It's been like this for years. However, with one of my own domains and a catch all rule in the e-mail server. Why? From time to time, some services require that you send emails with exactly this e-mail address as the sender. And that doesn't just work with most services. Because in such a case, you have to turn exactly this e-mail address into a real account with a mailbox.

addy.io allows you to send email from any of your aliases. It’s a little clunky, but it’s the sort of thing I do so infrequently I don’t really mind. https://addy.io/faq/#how-do-i-send-email-from-an-alias

But only for 30 aliases for 4$/month.

Re: How to use the Bitwarden forwarded email alias generator

#58
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK Fastmail is the only service that allows you to respond from an arbitrary email address (of course, provided that you prove that you own the domain). You can do it in Office 365 but it's tedious, you have to add the alias and then you can email from it.

I’ve been doing this with SimpleLogin for years. I’d expect anonaddy to be able to do the same.

You can get a complete web server with a domain for less than SimpleLogin charges for that service.

Re: How to use the Bitwarden forwarded email alias generator

#59
post #9

It's been like this for years. However, with one of my own domains and a catch all rule in the e-mail server. Why? From time to time, some services require that you send emails with exactly this e-mail address as the sender. And that doesn't just work with most services. Because in such a case, you have to turn exactly this e-mail address into a real account with a mailbox.

AFAIK Fastmail is the only service that allows you to respond from an arbitrary email address (of course, provided that you prove that you own the domain). You can do it in Office 365 but it's tedious, you have to add the alias and then you can email from it.

If you do that with a good web host [1], its cheaper than Fastmail or any other mailservice.

[1]:https://www.hetzner.com/webhosting/

I am not affiliated with Hetzner.

Re: How to use the Bitwarden forwarded email alias generator

#60
post #52
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet no spammer or salesperson would ever think of replacing such a generic localpart to get to your eyeballs.

I've used @domain.com for many many years and never had someone do that. Spammers simply obtain lists of emails through hacking or purchasing them and then spam them, they don't pick a particular address and modify it.

I’ve been doing this for years and have never had any problems with it. It is more likely that generic emails will be generated if you have a domain that is also present as a public website on the internet.
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