STOP Giving Your Real Email Address (do this instead)

Summary

Josh from All Things Secured explains how email aliases can reduce spam, organize messages, and protect a real email address.

Aliases and inboxes

An alias is a distinct email address used for a particular purpose. An inbox is where messages are stored. Alias services can forward messages to an existing inbox, and aliases that are compromised or attract too much spam can be disabled.

Josh’s five-inbox setup

Josh keeps separate destinations for:

• Personal email
• Business email
• Encrypted communications
• A pseudonymous identity
• Alias management

He reserves his personal Gmail for close contacts and recommends keeping personal and business email separate.

For financial logins and secure communication with institutions and professionals, he uses a paid Proton Mail inbox. Keeping that address private can make unexpected financial messages in other inboxes easier to recognize as potential phishing.

Josh also uses a separate pseudonymous email identity when a service asks for contact details but does not need his real name. He uses it for situations such as event registrations and rarely checks the account.

Using aliases effectively

Josh mentions SimpleLogin, AnonAddy, Apple Hide My Email, and Maildrop. These services can create unique forwarding addresses for sign-ups. If an address is exposed or starts attracting spam, it can be deleted. Unlike aliases, temporary email addresses may not remain under the user’s control.

Instead of creating a new alias for every account, Josh recommends using memorable aliases for categories such as newsletters, social media, streaming, shopping, and marketing. He routes newsletters to a separate folder and sends much of his other promotional mail to his pseudonymous inbox.

Business email protection

The sponsored segment covers EasyDMARC, a service for managing and monitoring domain email authentication. Josh says it can help users review DMARC reports, identify threats, prevent domain impersonation, and support email deliverability. He recommends that domain owners set up DMARC protection.

Practical recommendations

• Keep personal and business email separate.
• Reserve a private address for sensitive communications.
• Use aliases or alias groups for sign-ups and marketing.
• Filter valued newsletters out of the primary inbox.

Main speaker/source: Josh, host of All Things Secured Sponsor mentioned: EasyDMARC