Create a disposable email address that lasts only a few hours

There are many services that offer disposable email addresses but one of simplest is Mailinator, as it can be used by anyone immediately, with no registration required. All you have to do is make up an email address ending in ‘@mailinator.com’, such as computeractive@mailinator.com. If that sounds hard to believe, just try it: use your existing email program or server to send an email to whateveryoulike@mailinator.com.

To begin, launch a web browser and go to the Mailinator website. When the website appears, click in the ‘Check your inbox!’ box, type whateveryoulike@mailinator.com (or whatever you chose as your Mailinator email address) and press Enter, or click the yellow Go! button. The ‘whateveryoulike’ inbox will now be displayed. Just click a message to read its contents (to find and click a free program’s activation link, for example).

If you want, click Delete to remove the email right away, though Mailinator will wipe it within a few hours anyway. Also while here, note the ‘Alternate Address’ above the inbox – M8R-pux4ac@mailinator.com in our case. We’ll explain what this is in the next step.

It may already have dawned on you that Mailinator is totally insecure. No passwords are required, so anyone could come along, type ‘whateveryoulike’ into the ‘Check your inbox!’ box and see what’s been delivered. However, the service is all about convenience and timing – use it only when you need a disposable email address and immediately delete anything sensitive. The longer and more complex your email address, the less likely it is that anyone will be able to drop in and pick up messages meant for your attention. As an additional safety measure, the Alternate Address noted down in Step 2 can be used to ‘mask’ the real address from others. In other words, if you supply someone or an application registration form with the M8R-pux4ac@mailinator.com address, messages will still be delivered to whateveryoulike@mailinator.com.