Hide your email address

Get easy privacy protection for free — no new inboxes required

REQUIRES

DuckDuckGo app (optional), DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials browser extension (optional)

YOU WILL LEARN

How to protect your email privacy

IT WILL TAKE

15 minutes

APPLE MADE WAVES when it introduced Sign in with Apple, the service that lets you use dummy email addresses in online forms and then have everything forwarded to your regular address.

Now DuckDuckGo (free) is offering a similar Email Protection feature. As well as enabling you to sign up for newsletters using randomly generated email addresses, the service also strips any incoming mail of privacy–breaking trackers. Sign up for a free @duck.com email address, then use it when you register for newsletters and DuckDuckGo will forward mail to your normal email address, free from tracking pixels and cookies. There’s no need to remember new passwords or use a new inbox.

At the time of writing the feature is in beta, but you can sign up for beta access in the DuckDuckGo app. For now, Email Protection is not available in Safari, but works in Firefox, Chrome, Brave and Edge, and of course the DuckDuckGo app. ALEX BLAKE

3 Enable Email Protection

Open the DuckDuckGo app and tap “…” in the bottom right. Tap Email Protection, then tap “I already have a Duck Address”. Enter your Duck address, tap Continue, then enter the confirmation code sent to your inbox.

4 Ready to go

Email protection is now enabled in DuckDuckGo’s web browser app. When you find a sign–up form while browsing a website in the app, enter your @duck.com email address to get protected.

5 Trackers blocked

When you get an email sent to this address, it will arrive in your everyday inbox (such as Gmail or Yahoo) with a note inside telling you how many trackers DuckDuckGo removed. Tap the banner for more info.

6 Random email address

You can also generate a random email address in the DuckDuckGo app. Just tap the DuckDuckGo icon in a form and tap Generate a Private Address. This still forwards mail to your regular inbox and removes trackers.

7 Get it on your Mac

Email Protection isn’t limited to the app. On your Mac, open a web browser and head to duckduckgo.com/email/login. Enter your @duck.com address and confirmation code. Note that this doesn’t work in Safari yet.

8 Cross–browser protection

Once this browser is registered, you can use your Duck address with it, or use it to generate a random one. Just click the DuckDuckGo icon in an email form and “Use a Private Address”.