Email alias and forwarding privacy ratings
Services that hide a real address behind aliases or forward mail to another inbox.
9 email forwarding and aliases are rated against 18 public criteria, and 9 have enough evidence for a letter grade. Of the 9 with a known jurisdiction, 7 are based in a Five Eyes country, and 7 in the wider Fourteen Eyes.
Open-source email forwarding and aliases only · Criteria for this category · Suggest an addition · Markdown
| Name | Grade | Score | Data | Jurisdiction | Open source | No trackers or telemetry | No ads or data sales | Independent audit | Transparency report | Tells users about requests | End-to-end encryption | No stored mail | Open protocols | Custom domains | Sign up without personal data | Sender Rewriting Scheme | ARC sealing | TLS configuration | Security headers | Modern web standards | Email security standards | Mail transport security |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Email forwarding and alias service for custom domains. Mail is forwarded in memory to existing mailboxes or webhooks, with optional OpenPGP encryption, and paid plans add SMTP sending and encrypted IMAP mailboxes. |
Grade B | 86 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | Yes | Partial | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | Partial | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not tested yet | Not tested yet | Yes |
Open-source email alias service that forwards mail from unlimited aliases to real mailboxes, with optional OpenPGP encryption. Has a free plan and can be self-hosted. |
Grade D | 58 | 100% | United Kingdom Five Eyes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Partial | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Partial | Partial | Yes | Not tested yet | Not tested yet | Yes |
Open-source email alias service run by Proton. Creates aliases that forward to real mailboxes and lets replies go out from the alias. Can also be self-hosted. |
Grade D | 58 | 100% | Switzerland Outside Eyes | Yes | Partial | Yes | Partial | Partial | Yes | Partial | Partial | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Partial | Not tested yet | Not tested yet | Yes |
Free Cloudflare service that forwards mail sent to addresses on a custom domain to existing inboxes or to Cloudflare Workers. |
Grade D | 48 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Partial | Yes | Partial | Not tested yet | Not applicable | Not tested yet |
Apple iCloud+ feature that creates random email addresses which forward to a personal inbox. Also used by Sign in with Apple. |
Grade D | 44 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Not tested yet | Not tested yet | No |
Free email alias service from DuckDuckGo that gives out @duck.com addresses and forwards mail to an existing inbox after removing email trackers. |
Grade F | 34 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | Partial | Yes | Partial | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Partial | Not tested yet | Not tested yet | No |
Email forwarding service for custom domains, with aliases, catch-all addresses, forwarding rules and SMTP sending on paid plans. |
Grade F | 34 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | Partial | Partial | Yes | No | Yes | Partial | Yes | No | Not tested yet | Not applicable | Not tested yet |
Email masking service from Mozilla that creates aliases and forwards mail to a real inbox. Works on the web and through a Firefox add-on. |
Grade F | 33 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Partial | No | No | No | No | No | Partial | No | Not tested yet | Not tested yet | No |
Email alias service that creates addresses on a personal 33mail.com subdomain or a custom domain and forwards mail to an existing inbox, with anonymous replies. |
Grade F | 9 | 100% | Ireland Outside Eyes | No | No | No | No | Partial | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | Partial | No | Not tested yet | Not tested yet | No |
Questions
What is the most private option among email forwarding and aliases?
No pick has been made yet. The table above is sorted by score, based on public evidence.
How are email forwarding and aliases rated?
Each entry answers 18 questions: open source, no trackers or telemetry, no ads or data sales, independent audit, transparency report, tells users about requests, TLS configuration, security headers, modern web standards, end-to-end encryption, no stored mail, open protocols, custom domains, sign up without personal data, email security standards, mail transport security, Sender Rewriting Scheme and ARC sealing. Answers need links to evidence. See the full criteria.
Does jurisdiction matter?
Jurisdiction decides which laws can compel a provider to hand over data. Each entry shows its country and whether it is in the Five, Nine or Fourteen Eyes. The data a provider can hand over depends mostly on what it stores and who holds the keys. Read about jurisdictions and the CLOUD Act.