Question 1

How long does a disposable address last?

Accepted Answer

One hour, and Add an hour gives it another hour, up to twenty-three times, so a day is the most any address gets. When the lease ends this page can no longer open the inbox, and each message is deleted from our server a day after it arrives. The address is not held back, so if somebody else takes it, mail from a slow sender can reach them instead.

Question 2

Can I choose my own address?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Pick the part before the @ and the domain. The name is not reserved for you, though: anybody who types the same one gets the same address and reads whatever arrives after they take it, so a generated name is the safer choice. A handful of role names are permanently off limits on every pooled domain, such as postmaster, abuse and security, because a domain that black-holes its own abuse reports stops being able to deliver anywhere.

Question 3

Can anyone who knows the address read the mail?

Accepted Answer

Not the mail that has already arrived. Reading takes the token this browser was handed when the inbox was made, not the address. But nothing holds an address for one person, so anybody who knows it can take it too and read whatever arrives after they do. Until each message is deleted, a day after it arrives, it sits on our server in readable form, exactly as it would in any webmail. Use this for signups and throwaway confirmations, not for anything you would mind somebody else being able to read.

Question 4

Why are the images in my message not loading?

Accepted Answer

They are blocked until you ask for them. Most images in automated mail are hosted by the sender, so fetching one tells their server the message was opened, from roughly this place, at this second. This reader strips every remote asset by default and offers to load them. The full Nextmail mailbox loads pictures automatically unless you turn that off.

Question 5

Can I send mail from a disposable address?

Accepted Answer

No, deliberately. These are receive-only. A pool of anonymous addresses that could send would be a spam source within a day, and the cost would land on the shared domains every other visitor depends on to receive anything at all.

Question 6

Will it work for signing up to a service?

Accepted Answer

Often, not always. Plenty of services keep lists of known disposable domains and refuse them, and no throwaway tool can honestly promise otherwise. If a form rejects the address, that is what has happened. A real address on your own domain is the answer, and it is what the rest of this site is about.

A throwaway address
that receives real mail.

Inbox

No message open

What you are actually holding

Questions this raises

Your inbox,
on your own terms.

A throwaway addressthat receives real mail.