How to Send an Anonymous Email? 6 Most Reliable Ways to Maintain your Anonymity

Can you send an anonymous email using mainstream email service providers like Google, Outlook, Yahoo, etc.?

Well, the most widely used email providers, like the one stated above, excel in terms of ease and storage but fall short in terms of privacy. The emails sent via these email services can be easily used to identify your name, IP address, email address, and other personal information. 

Now, you would wonder what to do, then? 

There’s no straight answer to that. The finest privacy and security results for sending an email anonymously come from combining many strategies. This will not only keep you safe when composing confidential emails but also when you are generally surfing the internet.

Now, in order to know more about sending an anonymous email, what these are, and how they are helpful, you can just jump right into the article below.

How can Anonymous Email be Useful?

You must be aware that through different discussion forums, websites, newsletters, etc., your email addresses and other information is gathered by various companies along with spammers. 

After that, the collected information is harvested for running various marketing campaigns and for selling and promoting products and services. Yes, the unwanted-spam emails from which your inbox is bombarded every day are a result of this!

However, there’s a simple way of preventing this, which is by using an anonymous email address.  You can use your anonymous email account whenever you need to sign up on a 

website that you do not trust or are just signing up for the sake of getting into it. 

This way, your personal information won’t get shared and used!

How Does Anonymous Email Work & How Can You Send One?

Numerous websites and applications market themselves as anonymous email providers, but do you know how they function?

Most of the time, they use encrypted tunnels to send your email in order to protect the data while it is being transmitted. They also restrict how much personally identifying information is included with emails; for instance, they could conceal your IP address.

Now, in order to know how you can send an anonymous email through these providers, you can go through the general steps listed below:

• First off, you will need to find a secure email service provider which allows you to send emails anonymously.

• After picking up the anonymous email sender, you will be required to sign up or register for it in order to use its services.

• Next, simply use your generated username and password to log into your account.

• And finally, hit the compose button for sending an anonymous email.

These were some general steps for guiding you on how you can send an anonymous email. However, if you want more specific methods about the topic, you can dig into the following information.

6 Ways to Send an Anonymous Email

Have you thought before that creating a new email account can provide you anonymity?

Making a fresh email account is the simplest approach to sending emails without being identified. If you follow this method, you can pick up any email service provider of your choice, even mainstream email clients like Gmail, Yahoo, etc., and create an account on it using false information. However, many emails require a telephone number while registering; therefore, pick an email that doesn’t require a phone number.

Even with these precautions, the email account won’t be entirely anonymous. These services will still monitor your IP address and gather data on your activity even if you don’t provide any personal information. Such details can be used to identify you and pinpoint where you are.

Further, if you indulge in any unethical or illegal practice your information can be easily provided to law enforcement authorities.

With the added benefit of being safer than conventional emails, encrypted emails are a far better option for sending anonymous emails. Your contact list, inbox, and emails are all protected by this encryption. 

No one, not even the service provider that is monitoring your activities, will be able to access your emails (in most cases). Many email service providers like Tutanota, StartMail, ProtonMail, etc., are certain to be more private than Gmail or Yahoo, albeit various providers deliver different features.

Your IP address might still be a problem, no matter which method or email service you choose to send anonymous emails to. Thus, hiding your IP address while sending an email is one other way of concealing your internet identity and sending emails anonymously. 

In order to do so, you can download and use any VPN (virtual private network) program on your device alongside Tor Browser, which also doesn’t reveal the IP address. While using a VPN, your connection will be encrypted and routed through a middle server, disguising your true IP address, while with the Tor Browser, your connection will be routed across many network nodes, making you undetectable.

However, there are many VPNs like NordVPN, that employ both methods to maintain your anonymity.

Burner emails are used for a very short period of time before being deleted. They either have a set time limit for expiration or let you send a message without creating an account that may be used to identify you, thus maintaining your anonymity.

Further, you can use burner emails while signing up for accounts on dubious websites, which might help you avoid spam. However, the only negative of this email is that if you forget your password, it might be very difficult to recover your account that is linked to a burner email. 

Thus, utilizing burner emails when there is a minimal probability that you will need to use them in the future is the wisest course of action.

There are settings available in a number of email applications that let you send encrypted emails, including Gmail Outlook. With this done, you will be able to send messages that won’t be traceable.

In order to do so, first, you must create a new Outlook account or Gmail account under a fake name in order to prevent your identity from being linked to these emails. After that, you will have to activate the encryption settings, which you can do by following the steps given below:

For Outlook 365:

1. Open Outlook on your system, and click on the Options menu in the top menu bar.

2. Now, click on the Encrypt option.

   

3. Finally, you will see the following option: Encrypt Only and Do Not Forward. The former option only encrypts the email while the latter one prevents it from forwarding. So, select according to your preference.

For Gmail:

1. Log into your Gmail account on the desktop.

2. Click on the Compose button to write the email.

3. Then, click on the Confidential Mode icon (a lock), present at the bottom of the email composing window.

   

4. Finally, select the expiration date, select the passcode option and click on the Save button.

   

This will encrypt the anonymous email you are sending from Gmail. Repeat the same for every anonymous email you want to send.

If you want to know how to send anonymous emails because of the confidential files you want to share with your email, then this can be the appropriate method for you.

First, you need to know that the personal information attached to a document file can give away your identity even if you are sending an anonymous email. Your entire name and any private information that you don’t wish to reveal may be included with the document you are sharing. 

Now, in order to do it anonymously, you can send the file by taking its screenshots and removing its metadata. This will help you send the document without leaving your trace.

Document Inspector, a built-in tool for Windows, will help you in the removal of such information. This will enable you to assess the information you are sharing with the file and remove any portions of it that you don’t want to be shared. This way you can maintain your anonymity effortlessly.

However, if you want to know the specific process to do so, refer to the steps given below:

On Windows:

1. First off, select the image from which you want to remove impersonal information.

2. Right-click on it and from the context menu, select the Properties option.

3. Now, in the Properties window, switch to the Details tab.

4. Click on the Remove Properties and Personal Information option at the bottom of the screen.

   

5. Finally, click on the Create a Copy With All Possible Properties Removed option.

   

On Mac:

1. Begin by opening the image in Preview.

2. Click on the Tools menu and then select the Show Inspector option.

3. After that, click on the info tab (i) and then go to the EXIF tab.

4. From there, delete your metadata.

5 Most Reliable Anonymous Email Service Providers

Now that you have learned what can be the ways to send anonymous emails, then you must be aware that the most reliable and secure of them all is using an email provider that lets you send such emails. 

Well, don’t worry, if you don’t know any such service at this point because here is the list of the most useful and reliable email service providers that will help you in sending anonymous emails.

ProtonMail is a reputed email service provider, one of the best in its domain that provides a dependable service for sending emails anonymously. One other most pleasing feature of this service provider is that there is a no-logs policy, because of which there is no record of your activities while using this email, thereby, making it completely untraceable.

Self-destructing email is another feature offered by ProtonMail, in which you simply have to choose your desired expiration period, and ProtonMail will remove the emails from the recipient’s inbox at that moment. In addition, this email service offers a free VPN, an app, supported on both iOS and Android along with an encrypted calendar.

You can enjoy the services provided by this email client while using its free plan. However, with its paid version you can send more anonymous emails in a day, with other advanced features that are not included in the free plan.

Though ProtonMail provides a lot of useful features, there’s a downside to it too, which is that you will have to provide your phone number in order to confirm your account.

One of the greatest solutions for individuals who don’t want to pay a lot of money or rather, any money at all to send anonymous emails, is this secure email service, Tutanota, which is end-to-end encrypted.

You will be able to send encrypted communications to those who are not Tutanota users. The contacts are also encrypted in addition to the inbox. 

Further, when creating an account, you won’t need to give any personally identifiable information. And, most importantly, it will remove your IP address from emails, thereby, helping you in sending emails anonymously.

This email client provides a free edition with 1 GB of storage. However, this plan only allows for one user and has additional restrictions, like storing emails only for four weeks. But, by purchasing its paid plan you can get extra services like unlimited email history and encrypted calendars.

Anonymous Email is an email service provider, using which you can directly send anonymous emails. You can utilize its services using its free plan. 

However, depending on your needs you switch to its premium plan as well, in which you will get the ability to send an anonymous email along with an attachment, alter your name and email address and instantly monitor the open rate of their emails. 

With the forwarding option, you can set your email addresses like Gmail, to receive replies to your email; in this case, as well, your identity remains hidden.

Guerrilla Mail has been a well-known service for sending anonymous emails for over a decade, which offers a temporary email account for anonymous email sending and receiving, and is a distinguishing feature of this email client.

Guerrilla Mail is much more convenient because sending messages doesn’t need having an account and providing any personal information. Further, if you want to sign up for a website but are hesitant to use your real email address, you may utilize Guerrilla Mail.

In other words, you may use this email as a trash can for unsolicited spam emails or for messages from senders you don’t trust.

The nicest part about Guerrilla Mail is that you can utilize the service without even spending a penny. 

StartMail is yet another trustworthy platform that helps you in sending anonymous emails. You can build barriers to your inbox because it supports burner emails. Further, if an email created using StartMail turns up in a spam mailing list, you can simply delete it right away and write & send another one without any difficulty.

StartMail encrypts the emails locally and sends them via HTTPS, much like the majority of email providers that prioritize privacy, and let you send emails anonymously.

This email client provides a free seven-day trial, which is a very good thing, as you can get to know in this time period whether this works for you or not. Even afterward, it provides services on a monthly or yearly basis at a very reasonable price, starting at just $2.50/month.

Can You Get Tracked after Sending an Anonymous Email?

If done correctly, it is impossible to identify the sender of an anonymous email that conceals the metadata, IP address, metadata, and other personal information. Nevertheless, it’s crucial to decide what information you genuinely want to conceal before attempting to send an anonymous email in order to choose the best way to do so. Further, to ensure the best security and privacy you can combine the ways, suggested above in the article, for sending anonymous emails.

Read More:

• How to Send Delayed Emails in Outlook? Simple Steps for Scheduling Emails
• A Thorough Guide for “How to Mark All Emails As Read on Gmail”
• What is My Email Address? Recovery Methods to Find Your Email Address
• How Do I Retrieve Emails I Accidentally Deleted?

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