Which Accounts Deserve Your Real Email? A Simple 3-Level Rule
Which Accounts Deserve Your Real Email? A Simple 3-Level Rule
Give your real email only to accounts you would be upset to lose; use an alias for accounts you keep but don't trust with your main inbox; and use temp mail for everything else. That one rule cuts most of your spam without ever locking you out of something important.
Level 1: Throwaway, so use temp mail
These are sign-ups you need once and never again:
- One-time downloads, free reports and "enter your email to continue" walls
- Discount codes and newsletter pop-ups you won't read
- Wi-Fi portals, forum lurking, testing a service for five minutes
- Developers testing their own sign-up and verification flows
A disposable inbox receives the code or link, and then the address simply stops mattering. If that site later leaks or sells its list, nothing reaches you.
Level 2: Keep it, but use an alias
These are accounts you'll keep using, but which don't hold anything important:
- Shopping accounts and loyalty programmes
- Streaming trials you might keep
- Communities and hobby sites
An email alias forwards to your inbox, so password resets still work, but you can switch it off if it starts attracting spam. Using one alias per service also shows you which company leaked your address.
Level 3: Important, so use your real email
These are accounts where losing access would really hurt:
- Banking, tax, government and work accounts
- Your phone, cloud storage and password manager
- Health and tracking apps that hold your personal records
The last one surprises people. A tracking app seems small, but its value is the history you build. For example, PeptideMate is a free peptide dose log for Android, iPhone, Mac and the web, where people record doses, injection sites, vial inventory and check-ins. After a few months, that log is worth more than most of your shopping accounts put together. Its web app also gives you a CSV export and an account-deletion option, and both need you to be able to sign in. Put an account like that on an address you control.
Moving an account up a level
Started with temp mail and now want to keep the account? Change the email in the account settings while the temporary inbox is still active, because most services send a confirmation to the old address first. If that inbox has already expired, you may have no way back in. When in doubt, make the move early.
The rule on one line
Temp mail for once, alias for keep-but-don't-care, real email for anything you'd hate to lose, including the apps that hold your own records.
