If you only use burner emails for spam, you’re missing out. They’re surprisingly useful for testing apps, managing free trials, protecting your identity on public Wi-Fi, and keeping your inbox focused on what actually matters.
6One-Time Account Verification
WhileAI assistants can make email less agonizingby filtering and organizing messages, prevention through burner emails is still your best defense. I can create a temporary email to activate the account and try the service. Most of the time, you don’t need to manually delete the email, as it’ll expire in a few hours or days. More importantly, your main inbox stays clean and focused on important messages.
Email forwarding services are also a great way to identify which service leaked or sold your email. If the alias starts receiving spam, you can delete it to stop the spam and block the service.
5Testing Your Own Websites and Apps
As someone who also builds apps and websites, I need multiple email addresses to test different user scenarios. How does the signup process work? What does the welcome email look like? How do password resets function? Testing these features with your main email gets messy fast.
Burner emails are perfect for this. I can create dozens of test accounts without cluttering my inbox or worrying about deleting test data later. Services likeMailinatoreven let you create emails on the fly—just make up any address @mailinator.com and check it instantly without signing up.
4Protecting Your Identity on Public WiFi
I use burner emails for new signups or services I haven’t used before. If someone intercepts my connection and captures login credentials, they’re getting access to a disposable email, not my primary one, that may be connected to banking, work, and personal accounts.
Data breaches happen so often that they barely make headlines. Last year alone, major companies like Ticketmaster, AT&T, and countless others exposed millions of email addresses and personal data.
When you use the same email address everywhere, a breach at any one service exposes you across all of them, making it easy for attackers to cross-reference breaches, build detailed profiles, and launch sophisticated phishing attacks. This isone of the most common email security mistakes people make, treating their primary email as a universal login.
How I Use a Backup Email Address to Keep My Online Accounts Secure
It’s easy to add another layer of protection to your online accounts.
My caution has paid off. Although many of my secondary email addresses and passwords have appeared in numerous data breaches, I didn’t have to scramble to change passwords everywhere or deal with targeted phishing attempts.
2Testing Apps, Services, or Products Anonymously
Free trials are great, but companies make it incredibly difficult to cancel before they charge you. They bank on you forgetting about that 30-day trial that automatically converts to a $50 monthly subscription. Even worse, canceling often requires keeping track of emails with account information.
Sure, you can use virtual credit cards to prevent services from charging you for the service that you no longer intend to use. However, I use burner emails paired with virtual credit cards to add a layer of protection. If I forget to cancel, the virtual card can be set to decline charges. Moreover, if the company tries to reach out about payment issues, those emails go to an address I’m not checking.
Some services detect and block common burner email domains, but there’s usually a workaround. Premium burner email services offer custom domains that look legitimate, or you can use the plus-sign trick with Gmail (like yourname+trial@gmail.com) to create unique addresses that still route to your main inbox.
1Participating in Surveys and Polls
Online surveys, polls, and giveaways often require your email address to participate. While some offer compensation and others don’t, almost all of them require your contact information, including email. The collected data is a goldmine for marketers, and they’ll definitely use it for marketing, which means more spam.
Burner emails are extremely useful for participating in one-time polls and surveys. This way, I can still partake in legitimate opportunities without sacrificing my inbox to endless promotional emails. Most contests require your email to verify the account and claim rewards, so temporary emails that expire in minutes won’t work. You may need to look for something more permanent but still disposable.
Personally, I use a few custom domains I own to create disposable aliases without worrying about managing multiple accounts or exposing my primary email addresses. While this solution may not be feasible for everyone, services like SimpleLogin or ProtonMail as email aliasing tools offer a very effective spam control mechanism and help you control your privacy online.
Setting Up Your Burner Email System
Setting up a burner email is easy. For temporary needs, bookmark a service like Temp-Mail to help you quickly generate a disposable email without any signup process.
For more permanent burner emails, consider services like ProtonMail or SimpleLogin. Start with the free plan to try email aliasing and see how it fits your workflow. Once you’re comfortable, you can upgrade to paid tiers for more aliases, custom domains, or advanced features like catch-all addresses that let you create aliases instantly.
Before going all-in on disposable emails, know that they have some limitations. Many online services block burner emails to prevent people from abusing free trials. You might need to try a few different services to find one that works, or use a paid service that offers more legitimate-looking email domains.
There’s also the flip side to consider. While burner emails protect regular users like us from spam and data breaches, some people use them for harassment or scams. That’s why many legitimate services have started blocking them—they’re trying to keep the bad actors out, even if it makes things harder for privacy-conscious users.
These 5 Email Apps Let You Create Extra Addresses for Privacy
Your email addresses don’t have to fall into the wrong hands.
The goal isn’t to complicate your life with dozens of email accounts. Start with one or two burner emails for your most common use cases, then expand as needed. Keep a simple note in your password manager about which email you used for what purpose.
Remember, burner emails are just another tool in your privacy toolkit. Use them smartly, and you’ll wonder how you ever managed without them.
