How to sort and choose email Aliases when signing up or editing account emails

Sorting email addresses out for various accounts

I have recently signed up to mailbox as I’m wanting to degoogle as much as I can.

I have had a gmail address for over 10 years, which has often shown up as being prawned. I do see quite a bit of spam come into the spam folder, but nothing too bad in the inbox.

I have also moved all emails I want to keep to mailbox so im only using gmail for incoming stuff and if I want to file away then i move it to mailbox via thunderbird

I do plan on keeping my Google account for things i can’t yet degoogle such as brought apps in play store, services that only work with Google Drive for backup ect.

I have thought of a plan of emails addresses using a combination Firefox relay and mailbox aliases.

Login email which is never used for signing up to anything, just login to mailbox

Personal email which is for services I use for personal use only services that are trustworthy, could use for bank maybe or a separate email?

Another email for signing up to accounts to use services for my own business

Email address for torrent trackers i use a lot as well as using Mozilla relay for trackers and services I want to use anomalously.

The issue I have is that I have a lot of accounts that use my Gmail address. I am thinking of keeping Gmail to use a shield against mailbox. but then it feels like a toss up between a well sorted tech life system vs not putting all eggs in 1 box.

if there’s a new service i would sign up using gmail just to try out then review the situation then switch email to mailbox later on. But I feel that I want to move past that.

This is what I currently do, but how do people pick which emails to use when signing up for a new service or even username for personal or anonymously.

I do know of some services that use 3rd party auth, such as talescale and the forums here. But again, how does one choose which service to use to sign up? I often avoid in case of issues with the 3rd party provider.

What are peoples thoughts, and does one go about getting email based accounts sorted.

I have had a read up here https://www.privacyguides.org/en/basics/account-creation/ but also I have found this post What is y'all setup for Proton services? quite helpful and would nice to build upon.

so what are peoples thoughts on how to go about this? I am working on deleting accounts where I can.

Many thanks

Sorry But I don’t fully understand what you mean in your post.

Oh sorry, which parts have i not written down correctly?

Sorry, just more or less dumped my thoughts down.

Have you looked into the email aliasing providers suggested on the site? They allow you to hide your email by forwarding all emails sent to the alias address to your mail inbox. I use SimpleLogin and I’ve had good results with it.

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A lot of things are unclear, and I don’t see what talescale (Tailscale?) for example has to do with anything regarding emails ?Also I am not sure what your goal is.

Yes I have. I use Mozilla relay.

But the crux is at what point does one use a temp mail or an alias?

Finally, how does one decide which current online accounts get which email address?

There’s no reason to ever really use a temporary email address over an alias. You can make new aliases for your old accounts that way you can cut down on the amount of email accounts you have.

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Just setup a rule on your gmail to forward to your current new main mail.

Search gmail inbox for keyword such as “welcome” or “verify”. That should show onboarding mail from providers welcoming you to their services. Visit their site, login, change account owner email address from the old gmail to your new address. Most people use 1 unique alias per 1 service for proper compartmentalization here. Theres simplelogin, addy.io, duck.com, firefox relay etc.

While you’re at it changing account owner address, maybe start changing password too. Use a dedicated password manager if you haven’t yet, 1 unique password for each service. Theres bitwarden, protonpass, keepass etc. Bitwarden can also automatically generate alias via simplelogin, addy and duck. Protonpass can generate simplelogin address. Enable 2fa too whenever possible.

Let that gmail auto forward for at least a few months, maybe a year before you can delete the account if thats what you’re going for. Wouldn’t want to miss any important account you forgot or miss changing the account owner.

Google allow creating a new account without also creating and linking a new gmail account to it. Maybe can be an option if you still need a google account without gmail. My google account have simplelogin as its account owner.

This great video (from AllThings Secured) explains the differences between temp-mail, alliases, burner emails, etc. Highly recommend to watch it so you understand the differences>

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Ah, thank you. I do use a password manager, so the logins are not an issue. its just knowing what to switch current email address to. do i pick a temp mail from Mozilla relay or Alias from mailbox and which one. Will look more into it.

Jesus, why is it so easy to sign up for accounts, yet sometimes so hard to delete or maintain!!

Thank you thats quite helpful.

I guess its best to use a multitude of different options from Mozilla relay and aliases in mailbox.org so that accounts are sorted in an organized way.

talescale uses 3rd party auth system. So there is no need to choose which email touse. but instead, the option is which 3rd party provider does one use. Options are google, who would know more about me. Microsoft. Which i would want to move away from. Apple or a passkey (maybe best option if i had something that works with it)

I’m also working on reducing my reliance on Google by using privacy-focused email services. For things like forums or anonymous services, I use aliases and temporary addresses. For personal and business communication, I switched to a reliable provider like StartMail, which offers encryption and easy alias creation.