Masked Email

A Masked Email address is a unique, automatically generated email address that can be used in place of your real email address.

Masked Email addresses are especially useful when you need to sign up with new services online. Instead of sharing your real email address, keep it private and protect yourself from data breaches and spam by creating a new Masked Email for every service.

If a Masked Email address starts receiving unwanted mail, you can simply disable that address. Masked Email addresses also make it easy to identify which service shared or leaked the address.

• Creating a Masked Email address in Fastmail
• Using a custom domain with Masked Email
• Using Masked Email with 1Password
  • Setting up forwarding
• Using Masked Email with Bitwarden
• Messages sent to and from Masked Email addresses
• Composing new messages from a Masked Email address
• Managing Masked Email addresses
• Troubleshooting

Creating a Masked Email address

You can create Masked Email addresses in the Fastmail web interface by following these steps:

1. Go to Settings → Masked Email.
2. Click New Masked Email address.
3. A Masked Email address will be automatically generated. Add a brief description, such as the service or domain the address was created for. This description will be displayed on messages sent to this address in the Fastmail interface.
4. Click Save.

Masked Email addresses are formatted as random words plus a random number, e.g. dog.food3495@domain.tld.

Using a custom domain with Masked Email

You can create Masked Email addresses at the fastmail.com domain, or at a specified custom domain that has been set up in your Fastmail account.

The custom domain used for Masked Email addresses can be selected on the Settings → Users & Sharing → Enable sharing screen. In multi-user accounts, only account admins can select the custom domain used.

If the custom domain used to create Masked Email addresses is removed from your Fastmail account, the Masked Email addresses at that domain will also be deleted from your Fastmail account, and any messages sent to those addresses will bounce.

Using Masked Email with 1Password

If you have a 1Password account, you can create Masked Email addresses through your 1Password browser extension directly, allowing you to easily and quickly generate a Masked Email address and unique password right on a website's signup page.

Connect your Fastmail account to 1Password by going to Settings → Masked Email and clicking Connect to 1Password. You will then be prompted to allow 1Password access to your Fastmail account, with details on the data that will be shared. After connecting, you can use 1Password to create and manage Masked Email addresses.

For more details about using Masked Email with 1Password, check out 1Password's help page here.

Need a 1Password account? To get 25% off 1Password Families, use this signup link.

Setting up forwarding

If you're new to Fastmail from 1Password and not used to checking your Fastmail account regularly yet, we strongly recommend creating a rule so that messages are forwarded to your main email address. 

Forwarding all messages sent to your Fastmail account

Forwarding all messages helps ensure that you do not miss important system messages from Fastmail, such as renewal notices.

You can create this rule by following these steps:

1. Go to Settings → Mail rules and click Create Rule.
2. Click the dropdown menu that says From and select All messages. Click Continue.
3. Select the Send a copy to checkbox and enter your main email address in the corresponding field. Be sure to click Save.

Forwarding messages sent to Masked Email addresses only

If you prefer not to forward all messages to another email address, you can instead create a rule so that any messages sent to Masked Email addresses are forwarded.

You can create this rule by following these steps:

1. Go to Settings → Mail rules and click Create Rule.
2. Click the dropdown menu that says From and select A header called.
3. Enter Fastmail-MaskedEmail in the corresponding field and click Continue.
4. This will bring you to a new screen showing all messages that match the rule you're creating. Click Create Rule.
5. Select the Send a copy to checkbox and enter your main email address in the corresponding field. Be sure to click Save.

Using Masked Email with Bitwarden

If you have a Bitwarden account, you can connect your Fastmail account and create Masked Email addresses through Bitwarden's Generator.

Connecting to Bitwarden must be done via API token. Detailed instructions on using Masked Email with Bitwarden can be found here.

Messages sent to and from Masked Email addresses

By default, messages sent to Masked Email addresses will arrive in the Inbox. You can create rules to organize these messages via the Settings → Mail rules screen.

When viewing a message that was sent to a Masked Email address, the description for the Masked Email address will be shown along with a mask icon next to the sender's name. You'll also see this mask icon in the message list.

When replying to a message that was sent to a Masked Email address, the Masked Email address will be used by default to reply. Other email addresses can be selected on the Compose screen when replying.

Composing new messages from a Masked Email address

If you'd like to compose new messages with a Masked Email address, open the dropdown bar for the sending address on the Compose screen and click Show all. This will allow you to select the Masked Email address that you would like to send from.

Managing Masked Email addresses

You can view and edit Masked Email addresses on the Settings → Masked Email screen. This screen shows a list of Masked Email addresses, the last time each address received mail, and whether the address is active.

You can use the Search Masked Email bar to search for a Masked Email address you've created, either by the description or by the address itself.

You can see all messages received by a Masked Email address by clicking the Edit button and then clicking Search Mail. (Note: Messages in Trash or Spam will not be included in the search unless you include the operator in:*.)

Masked Email addresses can be active, blocked, or deleted:

• Active means that the address is currently able to receive mail. 
• Blocked means that any messages sent to the address will go to your Trash folder.
• Deleted means that any messages sent to the address will bounce. To see a list of deleted Masked Email addresses, go to Settings → Masked Email and click Review deleted masked addresses. Deleted masked addresses can be restored at any time.
• If a Masked Email address has been created but never received mail, it can be permanently deleted from the Review deleted masked addresses screen.

Troubleshooting

If you're having trouble using the 1Password browser extension with Fastmail, try checking the Settings → Masked Email screen.

• If you still see a button that says Connect to 1Password, the connection process has not finished. In order to connect, you will need to sign into your 1Password account twice: both before and after connecting your Fastmail account.
• If you see 1Password is connected, check 1Password's masked email help page to make sure you have the necessary version of the 1Password browser extension for Masked Email.

If you're having trouble creating new Masked Email addresses, please note that we have limits on how many new Masked Email addresses can be created within a certain amount of time to prevent abuse. Try again in 24 hours, or contact our support team.