I’ve had the same email address for more than two decades. I use it for almost everything I do. It’s very convenient, but it also means that my inbox is flooded with advertising, newsletters, social media updates and other ephemera. Left unchecked, this flood of trivial correspondence can overwhelm the useful and important information it contains.
The two largest in the world email providers I realize this is a problem. Gmail and Outlook perform automatic mail sorting with the help of algorithms. Still, their solutions are imperfect and require constant manual intervention to train the algorithms and find the important material that was inadvertently downgraded.
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For years, I used rules and filters based on the sender address to get less important messages out of the inbox and into custom folders. However, setting up those rules and managing them is a tedious and time-consuming process. Every time a newsletter or marketer changed their sending address or used a different subdomain, I had to tweak that rule. Finally, I gave up and said, “Enough!”
What I found instead is a simple way to automatically get less important messages out of my inbox and into a separate folder where I can refer to them when I have time and inclination to do so. And all of this happens without the need to create and manage another email account.
Everything works thanks to alias, a feature that is built into most modern email solutions.
The magic of email aliases
An alias is an alternate email address linked to your main account. Messages addressed to an alias go to your inbox, along with messages sent to your main address. But since they are No Using your regular email address, you can configure your email client to perform custom actions using those aliases.
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For example, let’s say my primary email address is BenFranklin1758@outlook.comI can create the alias bf1758-news@outlook.com and use that address when I subscribe to a newsletter. I can create a single rule that looks for any messages sent to that alias and pulls them out of my inbox and into my Newsletters folder. Those messages are still easily accessible, but they never interfere with messages from the people and companies that are important to me.
You can set up similar aliases with matching subfolders for anything you like: recipes, sports headlines, social media alerts, and even correspondence from groups you’re a member of. Just remember to use the correct alias when signing up for a new service.
Aliases are also useful as throwaway addresses that can be used when you need to provide an email address to a sender you don’t trust. If you start receiving a flood of spam addressed to that address, simply delete the alias and actually return the spam to its sender with a message saying “no such address.”
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Don’t confuse aliases with forwarded accounts, which allow you to send and receive email from one account using the address associated with a separate account. Aliases are only useful in conjunction with a primary address and cannot be used on their own.
The following instructions apply to personal accounts that you manage yourself. If you have a business email account (through Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, for example), you can have aliases for your account using your organization’s custom domain, but you’ll need an administrator’s help to set up those aliases.
How to create an alias using Gmail
Although it is the most popular email service in the world, Gmail’s alias implementation is surprisingly limited. To create an alias, start with your primary address and then modify it by adding a plus sign at the end and then adding additional text. If your address is example@gmail.comyou can use example+news@gmail.com, example+family@gmail.cometc
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The problem with this type of alias is that it doesn’t prevent an unscrupulous sender from seeing your primary address, so be careful when using it with untrustworthy correspondents.
How to create an alias using Outlook.com
Each free Microsoft account allows you to create up to 10 aliases, using a different address of your choice in Outlook.com. (The address You have to follow Microsoft’s naming rules. and cannot already be in use as a primary address or alias).
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To get started, go to https://account.microsoft.comSign in with your Microsoft account and click the “Your info” tab. Under the “Account info” header, click “Edit account info,” which will take you to a page that lists all the aliases you’ve already created. Click “Add email” and enter the address you want to use. Then click “Add alias” to create the new address. (If the alias you entered isn’t available, you’ll see an error message here and will need to try a different address.)
You can add new aliases at any time (up to the limit of 10) or delete an existing alias from the Account Aliases page described above.
How to create an alias using your Apple ID
If you have an iPhone, iPad, or MacBook, you can use that device to create up to three email aliases that all point to an address associated with your Apple ID. This feature is called Hide my emailand uses the iCloud domain as a forwarding mechanism.
The only problem is that each alias uses an automatically generated name that can be difficult to remember, such as scooter.paroles0c@icloud.comYou can assign a label to that address to remind you what it is for, but you can’t choose your own address.
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To create an iCloud alias on an iOS device, open Settings, tap your account name, then tap iCloud > Hide My Email. (On a MacBook, use the Apple menu to open System Preferences, where you’ll find Hide My Email.) Tap Create New Address and follow the prompts to add a label and an optional note. Use the Forward To button to choose where you want to receive emails sent to that alias.
Other alias options
As I mentioned earlier, most modern email providers support the alias feature. If you have a free Proton Mail account, you can create up to 10 aliases for it, while a Proton Unlimited account supports unlimited aliases. If your email is hosted on Fastmail or Yahoo Mail, you will need a premium account to create aliases. In all of those cases, you have the option to create aliases using a custom domain.
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You can also use privacy plugins that include email masking features. NordPass Premium and Family Editions, for example, allow unlimited aliases. You can get up to three email aliases with the free version of Iron vest (formerly known as MaskMe); premium versions support 50 or more custom aliases. And in the comments, one reader points out the handy (and free) DuckDuckGo Email Protection feature; install the browser extension, set up an address at duck.com, and you can set up private aliases that forward to your regular inbox and eliminate common email trackers.