Introduction
Mailmask is a service which lets you create an unlimited no. of temporary email addresses, all of which automatically foward emails to your real email address.
Mailmask additionally lets you to turn each of these temporary email adresss on or off whenever you like.
Temporary email addresses are a great way to:
By allowing you to create unlimited temporary email addresses, Mailmask allows you to provide a unique email address for every person or online service you interact with.
Later on, if you wish to stop receiving email from a particular individual, company or online service you can simply disable the dispoable email address you created for them, leaving all the others intact.
In effect you now have fine-grained control over who gets to send you email, all without ever having to reveal your real email address!
When you sign up for Mailmask you will set yourself a username. From then onwards, emails sent to (anything)@(your username).msk.sh will be forwarded to your real email address.
For example, if your username is jim then emails sent to [email protected], [email protected], etc will all be forwarded to your real email address.
Any time you need to give your email address to someone (e.g. when registering on a new website) you can instead give them an alias address created on-the-fly, thus keeping your actual email address private.
For example, if your username is jim and you are registering on nytimes.com then you could use the alias [email protected] to register. An email received at [email protected] will be transparently forwarded to your email address with the sender knowing.
When you wish to stop receiving email from a particular sender you can go to your Mailmask dashboard and simply turn off that specific email alias, leaving the others enabled. Thus you can block spam or unwanted messages on a per-alias basis.
Most other similar services require you to pre-create the alias address prior to use.
They often provide browser extensions to automate this process, though can never be as flexible as Mailmask which lets you create aliases without needing any additional sofware.
And indeed, this is Mailmask's killer usability point - that you can create aliases on-the-fly.
Because Mailmask fowards all received email to your real email address you can keep using your existing mail client to read your email, unlike other services which require you to use their website.
When you need to turn an alias off (or back on) you can easily do so via your Mailmask dashboard. Most other services do not offer this feature since their aliases are very short-lived in the first place.
Finally, Mailmask lets you reply to all received emails whilst still ensuring your privacy.
Yes, you can use it for any type of email.
Our system is engineered to handle any type of email (including large attachments) so there are no limitations to the kinds of email communication you can use it with.
We also don't store or scan any of your content on our servers so confidentiality is assured.
Note that Mailmask is also open-source, so you can also self-host it for maximum security.
Aliases
In Mailmask, an alias is another name for a temporary email address which transparently forwards all received email to your real email address.
For example, if your username is jim then all email received at [email protected] will transparently be forwarded to your real email address.
Mailmask lets you create an unlimited no. of aliases by simply changing the prefix (the bit before the `@).
For example, if your username is jim then [email protected], [email protected], etc wil all transparently foward received email to your real email address.
Once you have registered with Mailmask and chosen your username, you can create a new email alias on-the-fly when you need to give someone your email address.
For example, if your username is jim and you are registering on nytimes.com then you could use the alias [email protected] to register. An email received at [email protected] will be transparently forwarded to your email address with the sender knowing.
If/when they send you an email Mailmask will automatically forward the messages to your real email address and the alias used will show up in your dashboard.
To test this process out simply send an email to [email protected](your username).msk.sh and then check that the test alias appears in the dashboard.
All aliases can be seen and managed in your dashboard.
All created aliases are valid forever.
To disable an alias, simply turn it off via your dashboard - any subsequent email received through that alias will be silently discarded.
You can turn an alias off via your dashboard.
Please note that once an alias is turned off we thereafter silently discard all email received through it without notifying you any further. So please be sure that you want to turn an alias off.
You can turn an alias back on via your dashboard.
Please note that once an alias is turned off we thereafter silently discard all email received through it. Thus, when you turn it back on you will not be able to catch up on the emails you missed in the intervening period.
Yes! Please read our blog post on this.
Privacy
Yes! It is not possible for a sender to work out your real email address from your Mailmask address.
Unless a sender already knows that the msk.sh domain represents the Mailmask service there is no other way for them to know that you are using Mailmask. From their point of view, the alias address you give them is the same as any other email address.
Yes. When you reply to an email received via Mailmask it goes through Mailmask before it reaches the original sender.
This allows us to hide your real email address and thus ensure your privacy.
When an alias is turned off Mailmask will silently drop all the emails received at that alias without notifying the senders. Thus the senders will not know that the alias is turned off.
This is by design and is intended as a security measure for your benefit.
We don't ever scan your email content for any purposes. In terms of storage, we only store your email in our system's outbound sending queue, from which it is gets removed as soon as it gets forwarded to you.
We do not store or mine any of your email data for information. And we do not add tracking information to your emails.
We do use analytics tracking cookies on our website to help us improve our website experience.
Please see our privacy policy for more details.
Yes, Mailmask is indeed open source. Our source code repository is located on Github.
We also have a self-hosting guide if you wish to host Mailmask on your own server.
Yes indeed! Please follow our self-hosting guide for instructions.
Limits
Yes! there is no limit to the number of aliases you can create. For real.
There is no limit to the number of emails you can receive.
However, to ensure a fair service for all users we limit the amount of network bandwidth every user has access to.
Network bandwidth is a measure of the total amount of email data (text, attachments, etc) we handle for you within a given calendar month through your various aliases.
On the free Basic plan, we grant 10 MB of bandwidth per calendar month. This equates to receiving ~170 average-sized* emails per calendar month.
On the Premium plan we offer hundreds of Megabytes of bandwidth per month, which equates to several thousand emails.
Monthly bandwidth
The monthly bandwidth limit is a measure of the maximum amount of email data (text, attachments, etc) we will handle for you within a given calendar month through your various aliases.
The bandwidth limit exists to ensure a fair service for all of our users. Your bandwidth usage data gets reset at the start of every calendar month.
On the free Basic plan, we grant 10 MB of bandwidth per calendar month.This equates to receiving ~170average - sized emails in a single month.
On the Premium plan we grant hundreds of MB of bandwidth per month, which equates to several thousand emails.
The more email data we handle for you, the more it costs us in bandwidth. Thus we feel it is only fair that we charge you on this basis as well.
The bandwidth usage for a given calendar month is calculated as sum total email data (html, text, attachments) handled for you via all your Mailmask aliases from the beginning of the month until the end of that month inclusive.
This includes email forwarded to your as well as any emails (e.g. replies) you send back to senders via Mailmask.
You can see the bandwidth used so far in the current calendar month by visiting the your plan page.
On the Premium plan you will also be able to view the bandwidth used per alias.
Only replies and emails which are forwarded to your real email address count towards your bandwidth usage.
If you turn an alias off in your dashboard, future emails received at that alias (which do not then get forwarded to you) do NOT count towards your bandwidth usage.
However, any replies you send to emails already received via a disabled alias will still count towards your monthly bandwidth usage.
If you exceed your monthly bandwidth limit we will notify you by email, asking you to upgrade to a payment plan which has a higher monthly bandwidth limit.
Free and Premium plans
Yes!
It costs us to handle email for you, which is why we have to cap the monthly bandwidth for each plan.
On the Basic plan, the monthly bandwidth of 10 MB equates to ~170 average-sized* emails, which should be enough for general use in most cases.
If your email data volume is greater than this then you are better off choosing the Premium plan.
The Premium plan offers everything the Basic plan does, with the following improvements:
This equates to ~10,000 average-sized* emails, as opposed to ~170 on the Basic plan.
For each alias see stats for the current month such as how many emails were received and how much bandwidth was used. On the Basic plan we do not display per-alias statistics.
What if you want to use Mailmask with your other email addresses, such as your work address? Instead of registering a new Mailmask account and new subscription for them you can add them to your existing account and manage everything in one.
Payments and subscriptions
Our Basic plan is free forever. In addition we offer a Premium plan for power users who wish to make use of our full set of features.
All our plans can be seen on the pricing page.
We will only ask you to switch to the Premium plan or upgrade to a more expensive plan if you exceed your monthly bandwidth limit (please see the FAQ Monthly bandwidth section for more information).
Goto your plan page and select the plan you wish to upgrade to.
Yes! Goto your plan page and select the plan you wish to downgrade to.
When downgrading we will keep you your original plan until its next renewal date, after which you will automatically be downgraded to your newly chosen plan.
To cancel a paid subscription but keep using Mailmask, goto your plan page and downgrade to the Basic free plan.
If you wish to completely delete your Mailmask account this can be done from your account page.
Unfortunately all payments are non-refundable.
We use paddle.com is the payment processor as well as merchant of record for all transactions. They are fully GDPR-compliant and handle your card details - we never see or store these details ourselves.
Since we use paddle.com to process payments, so transactions might show up on your statement as `PADDLE.NEXT *MAILMASK. If you paid using Paypal the transaction may appear to be for `Paddle.com Market Limited.
We will inform you in the dashboard that your payment failed and attempt to take payment again a few days later.
You will also receive an email informing you of the failed payment.
If the second attempt to take payment also fails your subscription will automatically be cancelled.
Account management
If you are sure you want to delete your account you can do so via your account page.
This will also automatically cancel any paid subscription you have with us.
Please note, we are unable to restore your account to its previous state once deleted.
Troubleshooting
Please check your spam folder for any messages sent from the msk.sh domain. We recommend that you setup your spam filter to allow any and all messages from msk.sh through.
Please check your spam folder for any messages sent from the msk.sh domain. We recommend that you setup your spam filter to allow any and all messages from msk.sh through.
No problem! Visit our help and support page to find out how you can get in touch with us.