How to Send an Anonymous Email
Emails are great tools for sending and receiving information online, but just how secure are the emails you send using your regular email service providers?
A lot of email service providers allow you to send and receive emails but it does not do much to protect your identity and your privacy. In fact, email giants like Gmail and Yahoo track your email activities online to send you targeted ads.
If you want to send an anonymous email to a receiver, how do you do so without revealing your identity? How to get an untraceable email to send or/and receive sensitive information without exposing your identity?
In this article, you will learn everything you need to know to send anonymous emails without being tracked, including four ways to send an anonymous email and four of the most anonymous email service providers. You will also get actionable private email tips.
Let’s get started.
Why You May Want to Use an Untraceable Email
As a general concept, untraceable emails hide your identity and keep you some levels away from cyber harm through the internet. However, other than this general notion, there are certain specific reasons a lot of individuals choose to hide their identity behind emails or make use of emails that, more or less, do not particularly exist.
- Untraceable Emails are used by individuals to fight spam. Spammers harvest emails from web pages and mailing lists they have access to over the internet. Using an anonymous email for less important internet activities means your main email address does not appear on this list and you avoid receiving annoying spam and bulk messages.
- To Avoid Targeted Ads. Targeted ads are a result of your email and identity being compromised. For example, Google tracks your activities on the internet mostly through your email to serve you targeted ads. Using an anonymous email for most of your online activities keeps you as private as you want to be.
- Safe Haven against Cybercrimes and Other Security Threats. The hidden identity accompanying untraceable emails also proves useful for whistleblowers who wish to combat cybercrime but desire to stay safe from the possible harm or ripple effects accompanying it. This remains the same for journalists who also make articles and assertions against powerful institutions.
Some other uses of anonymous emails that are not so major include sending personal messages to individuals you know that they may not like to hear, sending love messages, or playing pranks.
How to Send an Anonymous Email Without Being Tracked?
Sending an anonymous email involves hiding your real IP address from the receiver and using a secure email service provider. There are several ways to send an anonymous email without fear of being tracked with an email tracking software.
1. Use an Encrypted and Anonymous Email Service
Popular email service providers keep a record of your name, track your IP and your location, and see email subject lines and recipients. Even if your messages remain secure, this does not assure privacy. It can put you in a compromising position where hackers see all the details of your email activities once they gain access.
To send anonymous email addresses that actually keep your identity and internet activities hidden, employing the services of a third-party anonymous email provider remains your best bet.
Third-party email providers offer you emails that are protected with reliable end-to-end encryption and two-factor authentication. These encrypted emails function just like regular emails but come with the additional advantage of keeping your information safe from even the email service provider itself.
Anonymous email services encrypt your messages and these encryptions typically cover your email address, inbox, and contact list. It ensures that even where a spy is lurking around your activities, no useful information can ever be collected over the internet. If your emails are intercepted in transit, nobody can see their content.
As expected, not all anonymous email providers are overly reliable or offer you comprehensive features alongside your emails. Some of the best and secure email providers in the market encrypt your emails, keep your calendars protected, provide you with encrypted cloud storage, integrations with external email services, custom email addresses, and options to create temporary emails.
There are a lot of anonymous email providers in the market, but ProtonMail, Tutanota, StartMail, and Guerilla Mail remain the best choices that guarantee you the most privacy. These top anonymous email service providers offer you the most comprehensive collection of anonymous email services.
2. Use a “Burner” Email or Fake Email Generator
Burner emails, popularly called temporary emails by the services that provide them, are fake emails that exist and are used for a short period of time. These burner emails either expire after a fixed period or enable you to send email messages without registering an account or inputting useful information that could be traced back to you.
If you wish to enjoy emailing activities without your privacy and personal data being compromised, using a burner email or fake email generator is ideal. Designed to be unique and anonymous, burner email addresses are useful for every service you sign up for. It is easy to dispose of them without any major consequence and it serves as sufficient layers of protection over your personal inbox.
Internet users make use of burner emails for multitudes of reasons. Burner emails are used for signing up to unwanted newsletters, registering on random forums, or shopping online to keep the subsequent spam messages that follow out of main inboxes.
When registering for services you do not trust, Burner emails remain good options. It protects you against data breaches and you can easily get rid of the account when things get out of hand. You also reserve your main email for your professional and personal use. Most burner email accounts are either “send-only” or “receive-only” but some allow you to do both.
Nonetheless, a drawback exists. Resetting or recovering a burner or temporary email account in the case of a forgotten password proves not to be the most straightforward, feasible, or easiest of things to accomplish. The best fake email generators in the market, however, may give you this privilege.
Some of the best burner email providers you can use to create temporary email addresses include TempMail, MailDrop, Malinator, EmailOnDeck, and 10minutemail.
3. Use a VPN to Hide Your IP
A VPN encrypts your connection and passes it through multiple intermediary network nodes and servers. With a good VPN, your actual IP address is well hidden and all your activities on the internet become completely untraceable.
VPNs have proven themselves to be very useful tools in keeping internet users as private as possible on the internet. The IP address through which you make use of an email, even when it is anonymous, could possibly give your location away. This is why, whichever method you use to send an anonymous email, supporting it with a VPN is one step you do not want to omit.
A VPN hides your IP address. Even with anonymous messages, IP addresses are still used to uncover your exact location, hack your device, and track your activity online. A VPN keeps you protected from these by hiding your main IP, replacing it with a new one, and routing your traffic through an encrypted VPN server.
Encryption through VPN means even your Internet Service Provider (ISP) does not have access to your data. A lot of internet service providers and large companies, in general, have become puppets to government agencies and routinely track what you do online.
Your private information is subsequently handed over to these agencies or even third-party companies that pay money for it. VPNs encrypt all of your data and traffic, making it indecipherable to internet service providers.
Top VPNs in the market typically present you with a strict zero-logs policy. This means your timeline of activities over the internet is never recorded. Some VPN providers keep activity logs and sell them to or share them with third parties. VPNs with this strict policy are the best choice.
4. Create a New Email Account
This is probably the most straightforward way of sending anonymous messages. You select an email service provider like the popular Gmail or Yahoo and create an email using false information. False information could be a fake name, fake home address, fake date of birth, or a faux version of any other information required to be provided by you.
No matter how easy it seems, however, this is easier said than done. Most email service providers require you to provide a phone number for verification purposes before your account is eventually created. Providing your phone number definitely leaves your privacy compromised. Providing a fake phone number means you most likely will not have access to the verification code sent to it.
Additionally, email services still track your IP address and collect data based on your actions, leaving your identity open to revelation. Popular email services are also required to provide information to law enforcement agencies.
Due to these, it becomes imperative that our previous advice be followed: make use of a VPN while sending these anonymous emails and managing your email account. Your activities, location, and messages remain encrypted and inaccessible by snooping email service providers with the use of a VPN.
The Most Anonymous Email Service Providers
1. ProtonMail
Best Anonymous Email Service Provider with A Strict Zero IP Log Policy
Having enjoyed reputable mentions from popular magazines and media outlets including Forbes, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and The Guardian, ProtonMail serves as your best bet in keeping your emails as anonymous as possible.
The anonymous email service provider is incorporated and run in Switzerland, meaning all your data is protected by the strict Swiss privacy laws.
ProtonMail offers you automatic end-to-end encryption to keep your emailing activities scrabbled and secured. With this anonymous email service provider, no personal information is required to create your secure email account and IP logs are not kept. These translate to more security and anonymity for you. ProtonMail is also open source and does not require any installation to be used.
You also have access to its Proton Calendar and Proton Drive services. These give you more privacy with your real-life schedules and important documents.
Pricing
A basic account with limited features is available to you for free. However, for more extended and advanced email features, you are offered three plans: a Plus plan, a Visionary plan, and a Professional plan for organizations.
2. Tutanota
Best Anonymous Email Service Provider that Offers Solution Specifically Optimized for Businesses
Coming as an Android, iOS, Linux, Windows, macOS, and web application, Tutanota is another anonymous email service provider that helps you keep your activities private while offering extra perks.
Tutanota is guided by strict data laws in Germany as well as the GDPR and secures your emails and activities through end-to-end encryption and two-factor authentication.
With Tutanota, encryption does not stop at your emails. The anonymous email service provider also encrypts your calendars and contacts and offers anonymous emails specifically optimized for businesses.
Tutanota is also open-source and completely separates itself from the grip of data and internet giants, Google.
Pricing
Tutanota offers you anonymous email services through two different pricing tiers: private and business. The private pricing tier has three different plans: free, premium, and teams.
The free plan is suitable for one user, offers one calendar and Tutanota-only domains. The premium plan comes with multiple calendars, expandable users, and custom domains, and the team plan allows you to share calendars, higher storage space, and more features for teams.
The business pricing tier has three different plans: premium, teams, and pro.
3. StartMail
Best Anonymous Email Service Provider that Allows You to Create An Unlimited Number of Disposable Emails
Another reliable anonymous email service provider based in The Netherlands and compliant with EU GDPR privacy laws, StartMail is one you can surely rely on. StartMail provides you encryption that shields it from your messages and allows you to create an unlimited number of disposable emails to keep your main email spam-free.
Through password-encrypted messages, even the emails sent to individuals that do not make use of an anonymous email service remain protected. StartMail is easy to set up and presents you with full IMAP/SMTP support, a 10GB email storage vault, and an option to use your custom domain.
Pricing
The pricing for StartMail’s services comes as two different yearly subscription plans: a personal account and a business account.
The personal account plan offers a free 7-day trial while the business account plan comes with custom domain options and centralized billing. Payments can be made through Bitcoin.
4. Guerilla Mail
Best Anonymous Email Service Provider for Fastest Account Creation and Disposal
A basic web application that has facilitated the creation of over 13 billion temporary emails, Guerilla Mail offers you one of the most reliable anonymous email services on the internet. It mainly serves as a platform to create temporary emails but also provides an encrypted inbox to receive emails and spam.
No signup or passwords are required and the unique or important element of this provider is the customizable inbox ID presented to you. Accompanied by the option of choosing an alternative domain, emails arrive in the inbox and can be accessed by anyone that knows your inbox ID.
Email addresses exist permanently but messages are only held for one hour before they are deleted regardless of whether you check them or not.
Pricing
Guerilla Mail is available to you for free.
Importance of Email Security and Anonymity
1. Protect Against Privacy Infringement
Regular emails are typically accompanied by great service by their providers but at a certain price. Popular email service providers like Google generate income from ads.
To generate targeted ad campaigns that prove to be more effective, they collect as much data as possible to study your browsing habits. This leaves you open to a lot of privacy infringements that you have little to no control over and, ultimately, you find yourself in a compromising position where important personal data can be used against you.
2. Protects Against Exposure of Your Private IP Address to Hackers
Additionally, email metadata exposes your private IP address and consequently, enables hackers (or the receiver of the email) to find your exact city, state, ZIP code, and internet service provider, among other information. This is not a situation you wish to find yourself in.
Employ either of the methods previously mentioned; opening a new account, using a reliable VPN, using burner emails, or patronizing anonymous email providers.
Keeping your email activities as anonymous and secure as possible equates to you taking steps to minimize the number of risks accompanying your presence on the internet. You have more freedom with your communications, avoid theft, or even have fun with pranks.
Actionable Private Email Tips
1. Avoid Sending Personally-Identifying Emails
Why use an anonymous or private email if you send messages in which you identify yourself? This defeats the whole point. So the first tip you definitely have to follow is to avoid making this mistake
2. Understand Your Service Provider’s Terms of Service (TOS)
For both regular and anonymous emails, every provider possesses terms of service which provide comprehensive information about what they entail. To begin with, a TOS tells you what kind of security you enjoy or if messages are encrypted on their server, or if there are protections against brute-force attacks.
Reading your provider’s TOS helps you determine if your identity and messages are truly being kept private or your provider only cares about their pockets.
3. Encrypt Your Connections
This cannot be overstressed. To totally safeguard your personal information and activities from identity thieves and even your service providers, you need to encrypt the connection between your computer and your email server. Personal data like usernames and email addresses remain unusable even if access is gained to them by hackers and unauthorized third parties.
Websites and popular service providers could seem encrypted enough but to totally stay safe, employ the use of a VPN at all times. A VPN is your best choice in keeping not only your emailing activities but your entire online footprint anonymous.
4. Avoid Phishing Scams
Hackers or cyber fraudsters send emails or text messages that trick you into revealing your private information. It is called a phishing scam.
To avoid becoming a victim, one thing you should do is to avoid clicking on any email links without verifying or being sure of the source. For instance, if you receive a message from a company you do business with, contact the firm to ensure that that mail was actually sent by it before reacting.
5. Never Input A Phone Number
One way through which your identity can be easily traced is through your mobile phone number. Even with fake or temporary email services, avoid giving out your phone line.
FAQ
Directly using Gmail’s web application as a webmail service keeps your external IP address and hostname safeguarded from the general public.
However, when you use third-party integrated applications like Thunderbird or Outlook client through SMTP, your external IP address and hostname accompany any emails you send and are visible to the receiver (or in an unfortunate case, to any spying hacker).
You should also acknowledge that when government authorities demand certain information about your email, for example during a police investigation, Gmail remains obligated to reveal your IP address and location.
Generally, anonymous or encrypted emails only keep your emailing activities protected from any third party looking to snoop on you.
When it comes to the receiver, there is little you could do to remain anonymous. Your best bet is to make use of a fake or temporary email with which your identity remains hidden. With a fake or temporary email, your recipient is kept oblivious to the real owner or is tricked into thinking it belongs to someone else.
No. Outlook works by making use of an email associated with the sender. It is designed in a way that the sender is related to an existing mail account of some type at all times.
The only solution you have is to create an alias to which your main account is not linked and where all incoming spam mails are directed.
No, Gmail is not anonymous. Although your personal information and activity are kept hidden from the public, Google still snoops on you to collect data. Data collected is used to serve you targeted ads.
Nonetheless, one way of keeping your identity and activities from the sight of Google is by opening your account with a fake name, location, or birth date. You should additionally make use of a reliable VPN at all times when using the service.
Also called temporary emails, burner emails are fake emails that exist and are used for a short period of time. These emails either expire after a fixed period or exist permanently while enabling you to send email messages without registering an account or inputting useful information that could be traced back to you.
Yes, this is what VPNs exist for. VPNs encrypt your connection and pass it through multiple intermediary network nodes and servers. They keep you protected by hiding your main IP, replacing it with a new one, and routing your traffic through an encrypted VPN server.
Encryption through a good VPN means even your service providers do not have access to your data. Your location and activity log is kept as hidden and encrypted as possible.
Yes, without proper encryption, a fake email can be traced but who is it being traced to? A characteristic of fake emails is the use of fake names, locations, and other information when they are being opened. This means that even where these emails are not properly protected, the information at the end of the tunnel is not useful.
There are ways this could be compromised. Without encryption, your IP address remains open to anyone that really wants to have access to it and this could be used to track your activities on and off the internet.
Your email contains information about your IP address through the email metadata. Although this information is generally not left out in the open, top email service providers like Google and Yahoo are obligated to give up information about your location to government authorities, in this case, the police, if it is requested.
Sending an anonymous email is never illegal. Illegality may only arise if the anonymous email is being used for illegal activities.
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Anastasia Belyh
Anastasia has been a professional blogger and researcher since 2014. She loves to perform in-depth software reviews to help software buyers make informed decisions when choosing project management software, CRM tools, website builders, and everything around growing a startup business.
Anastasia worked in management consulting and tech startups, so she has lots of experience in helping professionals choosing the right business software.