How to hide your email address in iOS 15
Apple’s upgraded cloud service, iCloud+, released as part of iOS 15, iPadOS 15 and macOS Monterey, offers a few key privacy-focused upgrades for paying subscribers. Bundled as part of the standard iCloud subscription, iCloud+ introduces Private Relay – which essentially works as a VPN – and Hide My Email.
The latter has been available as part of the Sign In With Apple service for the past few years, providing a randomly generated alias email address to submit to sites and services in place of your real email address, but it’s taken to the next level in iOS 15.
Rather than being limited to just Sign In With Apple, you’re able to create a number of alias emails using Hide My Email on your iPhone. You’ll be able to submit these email addresses in place of your real email, get all messages forwarded to your primary email address, and if you decide they become annoying, you can simply deactivate the alias.
Here’s how to set up alias email addresses in iOS 15.
How to create an alias email address using Hide My Email
If you’re subscribed to iCloud – and therefore iCloud+ – and you’ve got iOS 15 installed on your iPhone, here’s how to create an alias email address using Hide My Email.
You’re all done! You can now provide the random email address when signing up to websites in Safari, and you can send emails using the alias in the Mail app too.
How to deactivate an email address using Hide My Email
If you want to stop receiving emails from an alias created using Hide My Email, it’s easy to deactivate it.
If you change your mind in future and want to re-enable the email alias, simply navigate back to the Hide My Email menu, tap Inactive addresses, tap the alias in question and tap Reactivate address.
How to change the Hide My Email forwarding address
If you change your primary email address in future, or simply want to change the email address that emails are forwarded to, follow these steps:
For more on the upcoming software update, take a look atall you need to know about iOS 15and thetop iOS 15 tips and tricks.
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Author: Lewis Painter, Contributor
Lewis Painter was once a Tech Advisor Senior Staff Writer. He covers everything from iPhone to AirPods, plus a range of smartphones, tablets, laptops and gaming hardware.
