I am considering using Addy as my alias provider. I was going to get the Lite plan until I noticed that it has a limit on their shared domain aliases (@addy.io), which is 50.
Why would unlimited standard aliases (@username.addy.io) be appealing if there is a limit on shared domain aliases (@addy.io)?
Standard aliases compromise your privacy because they use a subdomain that is unique to you. IMO, even using the term “standard alias” for those aliases is misleading. I mistakenly thought they used shared domains, because for all alias providers the standard alias uses a shared domain.
I figure I will go for the Pro plan, but think what the Lite plan offers is ridiculous if privacy is the goal.
I have both SimpleLogin and Addy. I will resign from SimpleLogin and keep Addy - one domain is enough for my needs and I feel like the product is being developed and improved constantly. SL seems dead.
Anyway, Addy is a good value and great service overall.
As for the cons, seems like most of the work on Addy has been made by one person.
Anyways, I have Addy.io Lite and can’t recommenc it enough !
Why ? Because there is no unlimited aliases ? Yes but it makes the price low. And 50 aliases are enough for me. I often use my aliases on two websites.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I am very curious about the motives behind your decision.
1) Am I understanding correctly that you will go for Addy’s Lite plan?
If so, it doesn’t bother you that it has a limit on shared aliases and that most of your aliases with have subdomain unique to you, and hence will compromise your privacy?
2) Why are you quitting SL? Why do you think it’s dead?
It comes with Proton Pass after all. Why does Addy offer better value for you?
I agree that Addy is a good service overall and that the guy behind it is very friendly and offer good customer service.
3) If you had to choose between Addy’s Pro Plan and SL’s paid plan which are priced the same, which would you pick ?
Thank you for your balanced perspective. I really appreciate it.
Does it not bother you that standard aliases compromise your privacy?
Like @TrashPanda, I also have Proton Pass subscription. But I don’t plan on keeping 2 paid subscriptions for aliases. It’s too expensive. If Addy becomes my sole alias provider, there is no doubt that under the Lite Plan, I will reach my 50 shared alias limit fast. And I don’t really intend on using standard aliases unless it’s for multiple accounts with the same website, both under my real name. I don’t even think I have such an account.
I’ve got Addy.io Lite and love it! For me, I use the aliases on multiple websites but I only need the aliases for a short time. Having 50 aliases is perfect. I create an alias, then I enter a date and info on the web site to delete the alias when I’m done such as (May 28, 2025) https:\www.98rock.com in the edit field. This is personal info to myself when to delete the alias and where did I use the alias address.
Now the good part. As you delete the alias, you get another alias you can create as long as it’s no more than 50. So if you created 50 aliases then delete 7, you then can create 7 new aliases. I’m constantly creating and deleting aliases so having a limit of 50 is more than enough for me since I truley never reach that limit.
Now for subdomains. Aliases as stated above gives you more privacy since the domain is used by many others. There are rare times when I come across a web site that doesn’t accept a regular alias. That’s when I create my own subdomain alias like jkati7iy@JoeSmith.addymail.com or wpooiuv9@theinternetrules.addymail.com which is always accepted at these web sites. I believe you can create a total of 5 of these aliases which you can create and delete as many times as you want as long as it’s within the total of 5. The downside is these aliases are trackable since they are unique.
Now the fun stuff. If you use Proton Mail or create your own PGP key, you can use the public key on Addy.io. So every time you create an alias, the incoming email to that alias gets encrypted then delivered to your actual email address. No one can read it, not even your email provider. Only you can read it and until you do read it, the email stays encrypted at rest in you email providers inbox.
I could be wrong, but I am confident that the average alias user reaches 50 aliases pretty fast, within less than a year. I have hundreds. I hear you about deleting unused aliases, though. That said, most of the aliases I use are not for one time use. At worst, I disable an alias because I get too many notifications from it.
Did you try using a different domain first? I believe Addy has 6 different domains on the Lite Plan. If not, that’s a better way to protect your privacy. That said, I am surprised that @username.addymail.com would work if @addymail.com doesn’t work.
Let me know if I understand this correctly. Are you saying that if I use Addy with Proton Mail, and can have emails sent to my alias be E2EE? Meaning that neither Addy nor Proton can read them?
If this is true, that’s amazing! And I want to try it. How do I use Proton Mail with Addy’s public key? Also, if this is true Tuta should support PGP to make this a possibility. I really want to see Tuta grow a company and a service.
Everyone has different needs and it sounds like the unlimited plan would be right for you.
I wanted to keep it simple but the answer is yes, I tried the other domains. Usually when a web site blocks a known domain, it blocks all the others as well. That’s when I create a subdomain (standard) alias to get around this issue. The uniquness of the alias prevents the web site from blocking it since it’s unknown and unique.
It depends on how you look at it. When the incoming email hits Addy.io, it gets instantly encrypted then sent to your Proton email address. The key I use is the public key automatically generated by Proton which can be located in settings.
Go to settings
Go to ‘Encryption and Keys’
Go to ‘Email encryption keys’
Select the email you want to use in the dropdown menu.
On the right side under ‘Actions’, click the ‘Export Public Key’ button.
You can only use the PGP keys Proton creates. If you use a third party app like Thunderbird, you can then create your own PGP keys unknown to Proton. Keep in mind that Proton already has encryption at rest for all email but I believe Proton scans your email when it comes in to check for spam. This is probably done by Protons computers and filters and not scanned by actual people. Can someone at Proton intercept your email and read it? Maybe or maybe not. That depends on Proton. The keys Proton generates are suppose to be unknown to them so they can’t see any encrypted email. So the next possible weak link would be email coming to Addy.io. This should also be automated without anyone looking at it but then again, this depends on Addy.io. I have HIGH confidence in both and believe they wouldn’t jepordize their business by breaking the privacy they promise.
By adding your public key to Addy.io, the email is already encrypted and I believe Proton is unable to scan your email since it’s already encrypted.
I’m currently using Addy and Proton Pass/SL with Tuta. But if adding PGP to Addy and Proton Pass/SL would E2EE emails I receive to my aliases so that neither Addy nor Proton can read them if they wanted to, I am open to changing my alias inbox to Proton.
Tuta doesn’t use PGP internally and I don’t think you have the option to add a PGP key either. There’s also no other external option either like using Thunderbird. To be fair, Tuta does offer encryption at rest and their own brew of encryption similar if not better than PGP.
Using Proton, Mailbox,org, etc. you can use a PGP and be able to do what I mentioned in my previous posts. If an email service offers IMAP, you can use any external email app like Thunderbird and others to use PGP keys. For example, Fastmail, Google etc. don’t use/offer PGP internally but they do have IMAP which allows you to use external apps that do use PGP keys.
Back to Addy.io. So if Addy has your public PGP key, the alias email comes in, gets encrypted and sent to your normal email address. When you reply, it stays encrypted when you send the email and gets unencrypted when it gets to Addy then sent to the original senders normal email address.
If the original sender uses PGP when replying to your alias, then it stays encrypted with the senders PGP key and DOES NOT get re-encrypted when it arrives at Addy. So you have perfect end-to-end encryption.
I believe the free Proton account comes with PGP encryption. So you could follow my instructions in the previous post to get or create your PGP keys.
Thank you. I pay for both Proton Mail and Tuta so that’s not a problem. I’ve mainly used Tuta for my alias inbox because I pay for Tuta anonymously, whereas my Proton Mail account is linked to my PayPal account.
But if I have better privacy with both Addy and Proton by using PGP, I might switch my alias inbox to Proton Mail.