Most people searching for an email alias want one inside the account they already have. So this page starts with what Gmail, Outlook.com and Yahoo actually offer, from their own help pages read on 10/09/2026, and then compares six services that make aliases for any inbox. I created and tested one alias myself, in Proton Pass; the rest is from each company’s pages, marked as such. The ranking order is the order of the scores on our scale. Proton Pass and Cloaked are scored; SimpleLogin, Firefox Relay, DuckDuckGo and Apple have no score, so they sit under the ranking without a number.
Key takeaways
- Gmail has no real alias feature for personal accounts: plus addressing (you+tag@gmail.com) and “Send mail as” are what Google offers, and Google says Send as for third-party addresses ends in January 2027.
- Google Workspace admins can add up to 30 aliases per user at no extra cost. Outlook.com aliases are extra usernames on your Microsoft account. Yahoo says extra addresses can no longer be created.
- Most addresses for free: DuckDuckGo (unlimited, inside its browser or extension), then Firefox Relay (50). Proton Pass and SimpleLogin give 10 each.
- Cheapest unlimited plan: Firefox Relay Premium at $11.88 a year. Cheapest with your own domain: Proton Pass Plus at $35.88 a year; SimpleLogin is $36 with unlimited domains.
- Phone aliases too: Cloaked (every plan, $119.99 a year) and Firefox Relay’s phone tier ($47.88 a year, U.S. and Canada).
- Top score: Proton Pass, 9.5/10.
- Not tested by us: every dashboard except Proton Pass. Cloaked’s plan cards sat behind a Cloudflare challenge on 10/08/2026.
How to make an email alias in Gmail
Google’s help center, read 10/09/2026, describes three things people call a Gmail alias. None of them hides your address from the recipient.
Plus addressing. Add a plus sign and any word before the @ in your current address, and mail to that variation lands in your inbox. Google’s Workspace Learning Center gives cassy+news@solarmora.com as the example and suggests a filter per variation. It works on personal Gmail too. The downside is obvious: anyone can delete the +tag and see your real address.
Dots. Google says dots don’t matter in personal Gmail addresses: johnsmith@gmail.com owns john.smith@gmail.com and every other dotted version. In Workspace accounts on a custom domain, dots do change the address.
Send mail as. Under Settings, See all settings, Accounts and Import, “Send mail as,” you can add another address you own, confirm it by a link, and pick it in the From line. Google says you can send from up to 99 addresses. At the top of that page on 10/09/2026 sat a notice: “Starting January 2027, Gmail will no longer support the ‘Send as’ feature for third-party email addresses, such as @yahoo.com or @outlook.com.” Workspace aliases and other Gmail addresses you own aren’t affected, Google says.
Google Workspace email alias. This is the only real alias in Google’s world, and an administrator creates it: Admin console, Directory, Users, pick the user, then the email addresses section. Google’s admin page says you can add up to 30 aliases per user at no extra cost, that only one user can use an alias, that aliases aren’t accounts you can sign in with, and that they aren’t private: a recipient searching Gmail may see the alias next to the primary address. Users send from the alias by choosing it in the From line.
Outlook.com and Hotmail aliases
Microsoft’s old article “Add or remove an email alias in Outlook.com” redirected, on 10/09/2026, to “How to add an email address to your Microsoft account.” The page says you can add a new email address “as another username (also known as an alias)” to your existing Microsoft account, either a brand-new Outlook.com address or one from another provider, and use any alias to sign in. The steps: sign in to your account’s “how you sign in” page, choose Edit account info, select Add email, follow the prompts. The page we read gave no cap on aliases and no mention of Hotmail by name, though Hotmail addresses are Microsoft accounts.
Yahoo email alias
Yahoo’s help page for extra email addresses opens with “It’s no longer possible to create an extra email address, and not all existing ones can be deleted.” Existing extra addresses can still be used to send and set as default. Yahoo Mail Plus, which once carried disposable addresses, was $5 a month with a 14-day trial on 10/09/2026, and its page didn’t list disposable addresses among the features we saw. If you want a new alias on a Yahoo inbox, the services below forward to any address.
Quick comparison
| # · Service | Score | Best for | Free storage / aliases | Custom domain | Price/yr (renewal) | Cancel | Data asked | Support | Try |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Proton Pass | 9.5/10 | 10 aliases free, in a password manager | 10 hide-my-email aliases, unlimited logins and devices | Pass Plus: your domain for aliases | $35.88/yrPass Plus, “Billed at $35.88 every 12 months”; shown as 40% off $4.99 | Settings → Subscription → Cancel (Proton help); 30-day refund once | Username, password, human check (own Proton sign-up 10/09/2026) | Support form and help center; hours not published | Visit Proton Pass |
| 2 Cloaked | 8.0/10 | Email + phone aliases, bundled | No free plan; unlimited email and phone aliases on every paid plan | Not listed | $119.99/yrIndividual, “Billed at $119.99 per year”; auto-renewal wording not found | Via Kit chat or support (help center); ToS: charges non-refundable | Phone number, email or username to sign up; name, addresses, DOB for removals | Chat (Kit), email, phone; people Mon–Fri 9–8, weekends 9–1 ET | Visit Cloaked |
| — SimpleLogin | pending | Own domain, catch-all, open source | 10 aliases, 1 mailbox, replies from alias | Unlimited on Premium | $36/yrPremium, “$36/year or $4 billed monthly”; no refunds (FAQ) | Aliases keep working after a plan ends (FAQ); no refunds | Email address and password (or Proton account) | Contact form and forum; hours not published | no review yet |
| — Firefox Relay | pending | 50 masks free; $11.88/yr unlimited | 50 email masks, tracker removal | No; own @mozmail.com subdomain on Premium | $11.88/yrRelay Premium, “$11.88 billed yearly”; with phone mask $47.88 | Downgrade keeps existing masks (FAQ); 30-day money-back for first-timers | Mozilla account; sign-up not opened | Mozilla support site; hours not published | no review yet |
| — DuckDuckGo Email Protection | pending | Free, unlimited @duck.com addresses | Unlimited private addresses plus one personal @duck.com | No | $0No paid tier for Email Protection | Nothing to cancel; addresses deactivated in the dashboard | Forwarding address and a @duck.com name, in the DuckDuckGo app (not opened) | Help pages only | no review yet |
| — Apple Hide My Email | pending | Built into Apple devices | Free only with Sign in with Apple; iCloud+ from $0.99/month | Custom Email Domain on iCloud+ | $11.88/yriCloud+ 50 GB at $0.99/month in the U.S., billed monthly; our math: $11.88 for 12 months | Subscription managed on the device; not tested | Apple Account; no separate sign-up | Apple Support; not checked | no review yet |
Affiliate link · how it works →
Ranking by our scale · Prices verified 10/08–10/09/2026 · Cancel: path from each help center or terms, not tested
How we built this ranking
Proton Pass got a working test on 10/09/2026: one hide-my-email alias created on the free plan with the Proton account we opened the same day, and a test message sent to it from another provider and forwarded to the inbox. The other five got a desk review: pricing, FAQ, help and terms pages, and the sign-up form where one exists without an app or a device we didn’t have. Cloaked’s facts were captured on 10/08/2026 for our Cloaked vs DeleteMe page and reused here.
The score combines six parts: Results 30% · Price & value 20% · Checkout honesty 15% · Data handling 15% · Ease of use 10% · Support 10%. A service is ranked once it has a run and a score. Four of the six have no affiliate program with us, so they have no button, only a plain link.
The order of this table is the order of the scores. Whether a company pays us a commission or nothing at all doesn’t move a single row.
1. Proton Pass — best overall
For people who already use a Proton account or want a password manager that makes aliases at sign-up, with 10 free and unlimited for $35.88 a year.
- Checkout
- Plan
- Cancel
- Your data
- Eligibility
- Support
- Inside
Free · paid plans from $35.88/yr · verified 10/09/2026
9.5/10: for people who want aliases created by their password manager at the moment they sign up somewhere: 10 free, unlimited with your own domain for $35.88 a year. The free plan is the one we used.
On 10/09/2026 we signed in to Proton Pass with the free Proton Mail account we had just opened and created a hide-my-email alias at passinbox.com. A test email sent to it from another provider arrived in the Proton inbox, and the alias item counted one forward. Proton’s pricing page lists 10 aliases on Proton Free and “Unlimited hide-my-email aliases” on Pass Plus, which was $2.99 a month, “Billed at $35.88 every 12 months,” with a built-in 2FA authenticator, dark web monitoring, your own custom domain for aliases, additional mailboxes and the ability to start an email from an alias. Pass Family was $59.88 a year for six accounts.
Proton Pass is from Proton AG in Geneva, the same company as SimpleLogin, and its aliases page says they work as a relay that never stores your emails. Replies come from the alias, and an alias can forward to more than one inbox. The sign-up is the Proton account sign-up: a username, a password and a human check.
Where it falls short: 10 aliases on the free plan ties SimpleLogin for the lowest free limit here, apart from Cloaked, which has none. Sending a new email from an alias needs Pass Plus. We didn’t open the Pass Plus checkout, so the tax line and the renewal wording for this product come from Proton’s terms rather than our screen.
- Results9.5
- Price & value9.5
- Checkout honesty9.5
- Data handling9.5
- Ease of use9.5
- Support9.5
2. Cloaked — for email and phone aliases in one subscription
For people who want unlimited email and phone aliases bundled with data broker removal, and will pay $119.99 a year for the bundle.
- Checkout
- Plan
- Cancel
- Your data
- Eligibility
- Support
- Inside
Paid from $119.99/yr · verified 10/08/2026
8.0/10: for people who want email aliases and phone aliases from the same app, bundled with data broker removal, a VPN and a password manager for $119.99 a year. There is no free tier and no published auto-renewal line.
Cloaked, Inc., founded in 2020 and based in Massachusetts by its terms, sells one feature set in three sizes. The pricing page on 10/08/2026 listed Individual at $9.99 a month on annual billing, “Billed at $119.99 per year,” or $14.99 month to month; Couple at $174.99 a year; Family at $299.99. Every plan lists “Unlimited Email Aliases” and “Unlimited Phone Aliases.” Its help center describes each Cloaked identity as one email address, one phone number, one username and one password, and says outbound calls work only in the mobile app.
The sign-up on the checkout page offered a phone number, an email address or a username as the account identifier, with card payment through Stripe. The plan cards on that page were hidden behind a Cloudflare challenge we didn’t pass, so we didn’t see the order total. The checkout advertises a “30 day money back guarantee,” while the terms of service (effective 10/20/2025) say charges are “final and non-refundable, unless otherwise determined by Cloaked,” and the help center says refund requests are reviewed manually. We found no sentence about automatic renewal on the pricing page, the checkout or the terms.
Where it falls short: no free plan, no custom domain for aliases on its pages, and a refund promise that its terms contradict. The terms define heavy use as 50 identities in 30 days and exclude such accounts from refunds. Virtual cards are invite-only and need an SSN. We didn’t open a paid account, so the alias dashboard comes from help center articles.
- Results9.5
- Price & value7.0
- Checkout honesty7.0
- Data handling7.0
- Ease of use9.5
- Support7.0
Not ranked. We checked these services from their public pages and documents only, so they get no score and sit below the ranking.
SimpleLogin — for unlimited custom-domain aliases at $36 a year
For people who want their own domain, catch-all aliases and PGP forwarding from an open source service, with 10 aliases free to start.
- Checkout
- Plan
- Cancel
- Your data
- Eligibility
- Support
- Inside
Free · paid plans from $36/yr · verified 10/09/2026
Score pending: for people who want aliases on their own domain with catch-all and PGP, for $36 a year from an open source service. Free gets you 10 aliases that keep working if you stop paying.
SimpleLogin is the product of Proton AG, registered in Switzerland, and its code is on GitHub. The pricing page on 10/09/2026 listed Free at $0 with 10 aliases, one mailbox, replies from the alias, browser extensions and apps; and Premium at “$36/year or $4 billed monthly” with unlimited aliases, unlimited custom domains, catch-all domains, 5 subdomains, unlimited mailboxes, PGP encryption and the ability to start a new email from an alias. Premium now includes Proton Pass premium features, the page says.
The registration form asks for an email address and a password, and refuses disposable or forwarding addresses as the mailbox, or you sign up with a Proton account. We didn’t submit it. The pricing FAQ says that when a subscription ends all aliases, domains and mailboxes “continue working normally” and you just can’t create new ones above the free limit, and that there are no refunds because of the trial period.
Where it falls short: no refunds, by its own FAQ. The free plan has one mailbox and 10 aliases. It is the same company as Proton Pass, so it adds no jurisdiction diversity to a Proton setup. We didn’t open an account, so the dashboard is described from the pricing and FAQ pages.
- Results—
- Price & value—
- Checkout honesty—
- Data handling—
- Ease of use—
- Support—
Firefox Relay — for 50 free masks and a $0.99 upgrade
For people who want masks from a Mozilla account for free, or unlimited masks and a phone mask for a few dollars a month.
- Checkout
- Plan
- Cancel
- Your data
- Eligibility
- Support
- Inside
Free · paid plans from $11.88/yr · verified 10/09/2026
Score pending: for people who want the most generous free tier here, 50 masks, and the cheapest unlimited plan at $11.88 a year. Masks use mozmail.com, which Mozilla says some sites reject.
Firefox Relay is Mozilla’s masking service. The premium page on 10/09/2026 listed four tiers: Relay free with 50 email masks, a browser extension and tracker removal; Relay Premium at $0.99 a month, “$11.88 billed yearly,” with unlimited masks, a block for promotional email, your own subdomain at mozmail.com and anonymous replies; Premium with a phone mask at $3.99 a month, $47.88 a year; and a bundle with Mozilla VPN at $6.99 a month, $83.88 a year, marked limited-time. Premium is listed as available in the United States, and phone masking only in the U.S. and Canada, with one number you can’t change later.
The FAQ is clearer than most about limits: Premium users can reply to a forwarded email within three months of receiving it, attachments over 10 MB aren’t forwarded, and Mozilla stores an email at most three days, only when delivery fails. If you downgrade, masks on your subdomain keep forwarding but you can’t make new ones. First-time subscribers get a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Where it falls short: no custom domain, only a subdomain of mozmail.com, and the FAQ warns that some sites don’t accept subdomain addresses or anything outside Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo. The free tier can’t reply from a mask. We didn’t create a Mozilla account, so the dashboard comes from Relay’s own pages.
- Results—
- Price & value—
- Checkout honesty—
- Data handling—
- Ease of use—
- Support—
DuckDuckGo Email Protection — for unlimited free addresses with tracker removal
For people who already use the DuckDuckGo browser or extension and want unlimited free addresses that strip email trackers before forwarding.
- Checkout
- Plan
- Cancel
- Your data
- Eligibility
- Support
- Inside
Score pending: for people who want unlimited free addresses and don’t mind that sign-up only works inside DuckDuckGo’s browser or extension.
DuckDuckGo’s help pages, read 10/09/2026, describe Email Protection as “a free email forwarding service that removes multiple types of hidden email trackers and lets you create unlimited unique private email addresses on the fly.” You get one personal address, name@duck.com, and as many generated private addresses as you want, such as amaze-gem-spider@duck.com, all forwarding to the inbox you already have. You sign up in the DuckDuckGo mobile browser under Settings, or on desktop at duckduckgo.com/email while using its desktop browser or extension. Loading that page in plain Chrome showed only “Email Protection Requires DuckDuckGo.”
The help pages list replies from Duck Addresses, composing new mail from the personal address, deactivating and reactivating private addresses, and a privacy section on whether DuckDuckGo saves messages and whether replies hide your forwarding address. We didn’t install the extension or open an account, so those answers come from the page headings rather than our own test.
Where it falls short: no custom domain, no paid tier with more control, and no way to sign up or manage addresses outside DuckDuckGo’s own software. There is no support channel on the help pages beyond the pages themselves. Nothing here was tested by us inside an account.
- Results—
- Price & value—
- Checkout honesty—
- Data handling—
- Ease of use—
- Support—
Apple Hide My Email — for iPhone and Mac users with iCloud+
For people on Apple devices who want aliases built into Safari, Mail and Sign in with Apple, for $0.99 a month with 50 GB of iCloud.
- Checkout
- Plan
- Cancel
- Your data
- Eligibility
- Support
- Inside
Free · paid plans from $11.88/yr · verified 10/09/2026
Score pending: for people on an iPhone or Mac who want aliases without another app: free when you use Sign in with Apple, and anywhere in Safari and Mail with iCloud+ from $0.99 a month.
Apple’s support page on Hide My Email (published 12/04/2025) says it “generates unique, random email addresses that automatically forward to your personal email inbox,” that you can read and reply from them, and that Apple doesn’t read or process the content beyond standard spam filtering. With Sign in with Apple, the hide option appears when an app or site supports that login. With an iCloud+ subscription, you can create addresses from Settings, Safari and Mail, and change the forwarding address.
Apple’s iCloud+ plans page lists Hide My Email and Custom Email Domain on every tier. In the United States the 50 GB plan is $0.99 a month, 200 GB $2.99, 2 TB $9.99, 6 TB $29.99 and 12 TB $59.99, per apple.com/icloud on 10/09/2026. There is no annual price; iCloud+ bills monthly.
Where it falls short: Apple devices only, and the alias list lives in iCloud settings rather than a browser extension for Windows or Android. Outside Sign in with Apple, it needs a paid iCloud+ plan. We had no Apple device in this run, so the screens come from Apple’s support pages.
- Results—
- Price & value—
- Checkout honesty—
- Data handling—
- Ease of use—
- Support—
What we don’t recommend (and why)
No alias service is on our list of what we don’t recommend yet. What I’d avoid:
- Plus addressing as privacy. It sorts mail; it doesn’t hide you. Anyone can strip the tag.
- An alias tool you can’t leave. SimpleLogin and Firefox Relay say in writing that existing aliases keep working after you stop paying. Check that line before you put 200 aliases on a service.
- A refund promise the terms contradict. Cloaked’s checkout advertises a 30-day money-back guarantee while its terms call charges non-refundable unless Cloaked decides otherwise. SimpleLogin’s FAQ simply says no refunds.
- Relying on Gmail’s Send as for a Yahoo or Outlook address past 2026. Google says it ends in January 2027.
How to choose: buying guide
Do you need your own domain?
With your own domain, aliases survive a change of service. SimpleLogin includes unlimited custom domains at $36 a year and Proton Pass Plus a custom domain at $35.88. Firefox Relay gives a subdomain of mozmail.com, not your domain; DuckDuckGo and Cloaked list none; Apple’s custom email domain is an iCloud+ feature for your main address.
Do you need to reply or start an email from the alias?
Replying from the alias is free at SimpleLogin and Proton Pass, Premium at Firefox Relay, and part of Hide My Email at Apple. Starting a new email from an alias needs SimpleLogin Premium or Proton Pass Plus. Cloaked’s help says each identity has its own address you send from, and calls need the mobile app.
Phone number too?
Only Cloaked and Firefox Relay mask phone numbers. Relay’s phone tier is $47.88 a year, one number you can’t change, U.S. and Canada only, and you can only reply to texts, not start them, by its FAQ. Cloaked lists unlimited phone aliases on every plan at $119.99 a year.
Which app are you willing to live in?
DuckDuckGo needs its browser or extension to sign up; Apple needs an iPhone, iPad or Mac; Proton Pass and SimpleLogin have extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Safari and mobile apps; Firefox Relay works in any browser with its extension. If you also want a password manager, Proton Pass is one, and SimpleLogin Premium now bundles its features. Our password manager explainer covers that side.
Is a secure mailbox a better buy?
If what you want is a second, private inbox rather than a mask on your current one, a provider from our secure email providers page may fit better: StartMail bundles unlimited aliases with the mailbox, and Proton Mail’s free plan comes with the same 10 Proton Pass aliases as here.
What we checked
- Gmail: Google’s help pages on Send mail as (with the January 2027 notice), dots in addresses, plus addressing in the Workspace Learning Center, and the Workspace admin page on alternate email addresses (30 per user) — read 10/09/2026, no Gmail test account
- Outlook.com: Microsoft’s add-an-email-address page, which the Outlook.com alias article redirects to — read 10/09/2026, no test account
- Yahoo: help page on extra email addresses (no longer creatable) and the Yahoo Mail Plus page ($5/month, 14-day trial) — read 10/09/2026
- Cloaked: pricing, checkout account step (plan cards behind a Cloudflare challenge), help center, terms (10/20/2025) and privacy policy (09/19/2026) — captured 10/08/2026, no account
- Proton Pass: pricing page and aliases page 10/09/2026; one hide-my-email alias created on the free plan during our Proton Mail run and a test email forwarded through it
- SimpleLogin: pricing with the FAQ answers on refunds and ended subscriptions, home, FAQ, terms, registration form (not submitted) — 10/09/2026
- Firefox Relay: home, premium plans and FAQ pages — 10/09/2026, no Mozilla account
- DuckDuckGo Email Protection: help pages (what it is, how to get it, Duck Addresses, privacy); duckduckgo.com/email in plain Chrome showed only that it requires DuckDuckGo — 10/09/2026
- Apple Hide My Email: support pages 105078 (published 12/04/2025) and 108047 (iCloud+ plans), apple.com/icloud with U.S. prices — 10/09/2026, no Apple device
- No card or phone number entered anywhere; cancel paths from FAQs and help pages, not tested
- Where the run stopped: before payment everywhere. Proton Pass: one free alias created and tested on 10/09/2026. SimpleLogin: registration form opened, not submitted. Cloaked: checkout plan cards behind a Cloudflare challenge on 10/08/2026. Firefox Relay, DuckDuckGo, Apple: pages only.
FAQ
How do I create an email alias in Gmail?
A personal Gmail account has no alias feature in the usual sense. By Google’s help pages on 10/09/2026, you can add a plus sign and a word before the @ (you+shop@gmail.com) and the mail arrives in your inbox, dots in your address don’t matter, and under Settings, Accounts, “Send mail as” you can send from another address you own. Google says Send as for third-party addresses like Yahoo or Outlook ends in January 2027.
How do I add an email alias in Google Workspace?
An administrator adds it in the Admin console under Directory, Users, then the user’s Email addresses, per Google’s admin help. You can add up to 30 aliases per user at no extra cost, only one user can own an alias, and aliases aren’t separate accounts. Users then pick the alias in the From line in Gmail.
How do I make a Hotmail or Outlook.com email alias?
Microsoft’s help page, which the old Outlook.com alias article now redirects to, says you sign in to your Microsoft account, open the “how you sign in” page, select Add email and create a new Outlook.com address or add one from another provider. It becomes another username on the same account and the same inbox. The page we read didn’t state a limit.
Can I create a Yahoo email alias?
Not anymore, by Yahoo’s own help page: “It’s no longer possible to create an extra email address,” and not all existing ones can be deleted. Disposable addresses were a Yahoo Mail Plus feature; Plus costs $5 a month with a 14-day trial as of 10/09/2026. For new aliases on a Yahoo inbox, a separate alias service that forwards to Yahoo is the way.
What is a masked email?
A masked email, alias or relay address is a forwarding address that hides your real one. Mail sent to it goes to your inbox, and with most services you can reply from it and switch it off if it starts getting spam. Firefox Relay, DuckDuckGo, SimpleLogin, Proton Pass, Apple and Cloaked all work this way; the differences are the free limits, custom domains and which app you must use.
Which email alias service is free?
DuckDuckGo Email Protection is free with unlimited addresses but only inside its browser or extension. Firefox Relay gives 50 masks free. Proton Pass and SimpleLogin give 10 each. Apple’s Hide My Email is free only through Sign in with Apple. Cloaked has no free plan, by its pricing page on 10/08/2026.
Do aliases keep working if I stop paying?
At SimpleLogin, yes: its FAQ says all aliases keep receiving and sending, you just can’t create new ones above the free limit. Firefox Relay’s FAQ says masks keep forwarding after a downgrade. Cloaked’s terms say the account ends at the end of the paid period; what happens to its aliases after that isn’t stated on the pages we read.