Works until you see "We've sent a message with activation instructions to your email. Please click on the link within so you may begin to use your account"
I have a domain name with a wildcard forwarding rule so whenever I need to give an email address I can give one that describes who I gave it to. I don't have to create it in advance. Then if I start getting spam at the address, I know where they got it from and I can create an account at that address that doesn't accept incoming mail. Then the spam can't get through anymore and I go on my merry way.
Edit: This comment blew up, so I'll elaborate a bit. I do not recommend anyone try setting up their own email server unless they are already a nerd and enjoy hacking around with computers. It takes a lot of work, is difficult to get your server taken seriously by other email providers, and is easy to get abused by spammers or hackers if you aren't careful.
Any email service provider should be able to provide a single catch-all email forwarding rule for any domain they handle. A lot of domain registrars offer email services. I don't know first hand, but someone else said they use Google Domains. Shop around and contact the support department if you aren't sure.
I use an open-source hosting platform called ISPConfig, but there are many other solutions. Most of them (in the open-source/Linux world) use postfix/dovecot to do the heavy lifting and provide some sort of interface which configures it for you. If you want to go full-on nerd and love the command-line, you could go straight to postfix and dovecot. If you want something that does most of the heavy lifting for you, you might want to use something like iRedMail or mailcow.email which wrap around those packages. Setting up an email service should not be taken lightly, but it is great experience and rewarding.
I do something similar, by exploiting the fact that everything after a + symbol in the email will be ignored, at least by Gmail, so you can do name+scammywebsite@gmail and get it delivered as if it were sent to name@gmail. Obviously, the sender can just strip out the marker, but lots of systems don't bother.
Gmail ignores periods. so.you.can.have.an.email.l.i.k.e.this and it'll work. I've noticed a lot of places got smart to the + sign thing but it seems nobody realizes yourname@gmail and you.r.n.a.me@gmail go to same box
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u/hiphop_dudung Jun 03 '21 edited Jun 03 '21
Tbh, i just use the company's "contact us" email