What Email Masking Is and Why It Matters
Email masking means giving a service a substitute address that forwards mail to your real inbox. The service never sees your actual email. You stay reachable, but on your terms.
Why bother? Every signup, checkout, and free trial hands out your real address. One data breach, one shady data broker, one careless service that sells your info, and the spam never stops. You can't un-leak an email address. Once it's out there, it's out there permanently.
Your real email was never meant to be public. It's the key to your password resets, your bank notifications, your private conversations. Treating it like a business card you hand to strangers is a problem. Email masking fixes that by putting a layer between you and every service that asks "What's your email?"
Method 1: Gmail's Built-in Plus Addressing (the +1 Trick)
Gmail lets you add +anything after your username and still receive mail at your regular address. If your email is [email protected], you can sign up for Netflix with [email protected]. The message lands in the same inbox, and you can set up a filter based on the +tag.
What's good: It's free, requires zero setup, and works right now with any Gmail account. You can use it to sort incoming mail by source.
What's not: This isn't real masking. Your base email address ([email protected]) is fully visible to the recipient. Most services strip the + portion, which means they can see and store your real address anyway. There's no way to disable a specific +tag. If [email protected] starts getting spam, you can't shut it off without affecting your entire inbox.
Plus addressing is useful for filtering. It is not useful for privacy.
Method 2: Apple's Hide My Email
Apple's Hide My Email generates random addresses like [email protected] that forward to your iCloud inbox. You can create them during Sign in with Apple flows, in Safari, or through iCloud+ settings.
What's good: The generated address is truly random. The service you sign up with never sees your real email. You can delete individual relay addresses to stop forwarding.
What's not: This only works inside Apple's ecosystem. You need an iCloud+ subscription (starting at $0.99/month), an Apple device, and Safari or Apple apps. If Gmail is your primary inbox, Hide My Email doesn't integrate with it. The random addresses are hard to recognize at a glance, so managing dozens of them becomes messy. And if you ever leave Apple, those relay addresses stop working.
Hide My Email is solid if you're fully committed to Apple. For everyone else, especially Gmail users, it's a dead end.
Method 3: Using a Dedicated Masking Service
A dedicated masking service sits between your real inbox and every service that asks for your email. It works with any email provider and gives you full control over each address you create.
Here's how it works with Maskmail, step by step:
Step 1: Create one mask per service
Generate a unique mask whenever a site asks for your email. Signing up for a newsletter? Create a mask for it. Buying something online? Create a different mask. Every service gets its own address, so if one gets leaked or sold, the rest of your inbox stays clean.
Step 2: Route mail to your real inbox
Each mask forwards to the inbox you already use every day. That can be Gmail, Proton, or iCloud. No new mailbox to check, no workflow changes. Messages land in your real inbox within seconds through real-time forwarding.
Step 3: Disable a mask when spam starts
Getting junk from a mask you gave to a shady service? Disable it in one click with the instant kill switch. That sender loses access to you, but your other masks keep forwarding normally. Your real address stays untouched.
Features That Matter for Gmail Users
Works with any inbox. Maskmail forwards to Gmail, Proton, iCloud, or whatever you use. You read and reply from your normal email client.
Custom domain support. Connect your own domain and create masks on the spot. Your masks look like regular email addresses, which means websites that block known alias domains (like Firefox Relay's mozmail.com or DuckDuckGo's @duck.com) can't detect them.
Browser extension for Chrome, Edge, and Brave. Click into any email field on any website and generate a fresh mask in one click. No tab switching, no copy-paste.
Threaded two-way replies. Reply from your inbox and the message goes through your mask. The sender only sees the mask address, never your real email. The conversation threads naturally for both sides.
Delivery history. See every message routed through your masks in one place. Know what arrived, what bounced, and which mask it came from.
Pricing. $0.99/month base plus $0.006 per email forwarded. There's a 14-day free trial to test everything before committing.
How the Three Methods Compare
| Feature | Gmail + Addressing | Apple Hide My Email | Dedicated Service (Maskmail) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hides real address | No (base email visible) | Yes | Yes |
| Works with Gmail | Yes | No (Apple ecosystem) | Yes |
| Disable individual masks | No | Yes | Yes (one-click kill switch) |
| Custom domain | No | No | Yes |
| Two-way replies | N/A | Yes | Yes (threaded with sender context) |
| Cost | Free | iCloud+ ($0.99/mo) | $0.99/mo + usage |
| Browser extension | No | Safari only | Chrome, Edge, Brave |
Plus addressing is a filter, not a mask. Apple hides your address but locks you into one ecosystem. A dedicated service gives you actual control regardless of which inbox or browser you use.
For a broader look at how different services stack up, see the full best email alias services for 2026 comparison.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a way to mask my email?
Yes. Three ways: Gmail plus addressing (free but limited), Apple's Hide My Email (Apple ecosystem only), or a dedicated masking service that works with any inbox. Plus addressing doesn't actually hide your real address. Apple requires iCloud+ and Apple devices. A dedicated service like Maskmail creates unique forwarding addresses for every signup and works with Gmail, Proton, or iCloud.
What is the +1 Gmail trick?
Gmail lets you add +anything after your username (for example, [email protected]). Mail still arrives in your regular inbox, and you can filter by the tag. But most services strip the + portion, so it does not actually hide your address from them. There's no way to disable a specific +tag if it starts attracting spam.
Does email masking work?
Yes. A dedicated masking service creates a unique forwarding address for every signup. If one gets leaked or spammed, you disable that single mask. Your real address stays hidden and your other masks keep working. The key is choosing a method that truly hides your real address, not just appends a tag to it.
Can I use email masking with Gmail?
Yes. Services like Maskmail forward masked emails directly to your Gmail inbox. You read and reply from Gmail as usual. The sender only sees the mask address. Maskmail's browser extension works on Chrome, Edge, and Brave, so you can generate masks without leaving the page you're signing up on.