Everything we've written
Written for people who want to understand the mechanism, not be frightened into buying something. If you only read one, start with how to stop spam emails.
- How to Stop Spam Emails: The Complete Email Alias SystemThe four mechanisms that reduce spam, what each one can and can't do, and how a unique address per service turns spam into a solvable problem.
- Why Am I Getting So Much Spam All of a Sudden?Sudden spam spikes have a small number of causes. Here's how to work out which one you're dealing with.
- How Did This Company Get My Email Address?The realistic ways a company you've never heard of ends up with your address — and how to find out which one applies.
- Email Aliases Explained: How They Work and Why They're UsefulWhat an alias actually is, how the forwarding works underneath, and what it does and doesn't protect you from.
- Email Alias vs Disposable Email: What's the Difference?Both give a site something other than your real address. Only one of them still works when you need the password reset.
- What Actually Happens When You Disable an Email AliasWhat the sending server sees, why a bounce beats a silent drop, and the thing disabling an alias definitely does not do.
- What Happens to Your Aliases If the Service Shuts Down?The question nobody asks before handing out three hundred addresses: who owns the domain they're on?
- A Unique Email Address for Every Website: How and WhyOne address per service sounds like admin. Done properly it's less work than managing the spam it prevents.
- Data Brokers Explained: How They Get Your Information and What You Can DoWhat brokers are, where they get their data, and which of the things you can do about it actually work.
- Data Removal vs Data Prevention: Which Problem Are You Solving?Two different problems, routinely sold as one. Working out which you actually have decides what's worth paying for.
- California's DROP: Delete Your Data From Every Registered Broker, FreeCalifornia residents have a free, state-run route to broker deletion. Most privacy content never mentions it.
- Incogni Alternatives: What to Use Instead, and WhenAlternatives split into three categories, and two of them aren't removal services at all. Start by naming the problem.
- The Complete Guide to Email PrivacyMost email privacy advice is about encryption. The problem most people actually have is the address itself.
- How to Protect Your Email AddressOrdered by impact, not by how often they appear in listicles — including the popular advice that does nothing.
- How to Find Out Who Leaked Your Email AddressWhat you can infer after the fact, what you can't, and how to make the next leak identify itself.
- How to Check If Your Email Was in a Data BreachChecking takes a minute. Interpreting the result correctly is the part people get wrong.
- How to Stop Spam After a Data BreachA breached address can't be un-breached. Here's what actually reduces the consequences.
- How Do Data Brokers Get Your Email Address?Email is the industry's preferred join key. That's why it spreads further than anything else you hand over.
- Do Data Removal Services Actually Work?Yes, within limits — and the limits are the part worth understanding before you subscribe.
- Why Your Information Reappears After You Remove ItIt usually isn't bad faith. It's what happens when you delete a record from a system that keeps re-reading its sources.
- Do You Actually Need a Data Removal Service?Answer three questions first. Two of them might make the subscription unnecessary.
- Catch-All Email Explained (and Its Real Downside)The setting that makes aliases effortless — and the dictionary-attack trade-off nobody mentions.
- Gmail Plus Addressing: Why the + Trick Doesn't Stop SpamUseful for sorting your own mail. Close to useless for privacy, and it's worth knowing exactly why.
- How to Get Less Spam in GmailEverything Gmail gives you, ranked by effect — and the point at which Gmail can't help any further.
- Does Unsubscribing Actually Work?Yes for real companies, backed by law. No for the senders you most want to stop. Here's how to tell them apart.
- Custom Domain vs Provider Domain AliasesFree and instant, or owned and portable. The right answer depends on how much will depend on the addresses.
- The Best Email Alias Services, Compared HonestlySix services, real figures from their own pricing pages, and a recommendation that isn't always us.
- Do You Actually Need Incogni?Four questions that decide it. Answer them before subscribing, not after.
- How to Remove Your Email From Data BrokersStart with the free routes and a baseline search. Most people can do the useful 80% without a subscription.
- How to Stop Spam Without Changing Your Email AddressYou don't need a new address. You need to stop handing this one out.
- How to Stop Promotional and Marketing EmailsThe legal route works for real companies. Here's how to use it, and what it can't reach.
- How to Stop Newsletters You Never Signed Up ForNobody signs up for these knowingly. Here's how they actually reach you.
- How to Get Less Spam in OutlookEvery Outlook lever ranked, and the ceiling on what any inbox can do.
- How to Block an Email Sender (and What Blocking Doesn't Do)Blocking is weaker than people assume. Here's exactly what it does.
- How to Make a Company Stop Emailing YouThere's a legal route, an escalation route, and a route that doesn't need them at all.
- Email Alias vs Email Forwarding: Not the Same ThingEvery alias forwards. Not every forward is an alias — and the gap matters.
- How to Create Email Aliases: Every Method ComparedFour methods, honestly compared, with the setup steps for each.
- Should You Give Websites Your Real Email Address?Not a moral question. A practical one, with a rule you can apply in two seconds.
- Email Aliases for Online ShoppingRetailers share addresses more than anyone. You still need the receipts.
- Email Aliases for NewslettersOne address per publisher turns unsubscribing from a chore into a choice.
- Email Aliases for Free TrialsA throwaway address costs you the cancellation reminder. That's an expensive saving.
- Can an Email Alias Send and Receive Replies?Receiving is universal. Replying is not, and that difference decides which service you pick.
- Email Alias Best PracticesThe habits that separate a system that lasts from one you abandon in a month.
- How to Name and Organise Your Email AliasesGet the convention right on day one and the system runs itself.
- Do Email Aliases Break Account Recovery?The one way an alias system can genuinely hurt you — and it's entirely avoidable.
- How to Sign Up for Websites Without Getting SpamSixty seconds of care at the form saves years of unsubscribing.
- The Email Privacy ChecklistOrdered by what actually moves the needle, not by what's easy to write.
- Can You Stop Companies Selling Your Email Address?You can't unring the bell. You can take the bell away.
- Email Tracking Pixels: What They Are and How to Block ThemOne invisible image per email, reporting back. Blocking it takes one setting.
- Does a VPN Protect Your Email? (No — Here's What Does)A good tool for a different job. Here's the job it doesn't do.
- Can You Permanently Remove Your Email From the Internet?The honest answer is no. The useful answer is what to do about that.
- Data Broker Opt-Outs ExplainedThe process, the legal weight behind it, and the trap in the middle of it.
- What Actually Happens After Your Email Is LeakedA calm timeline of what follows a leak — and which part is the one that matters.
- SimpleLogin AlternativesFour reasons people leave, and the right alternative for each one.
- Apple Hide My Email AlternativesMostly for people who've realised the addresses don't leave with them.
- Incogni vs SimpleLogin: They Don't Do the Same ThingA comparison people search for constantly, between two products that don't compete.
- A 30-Day Plan to Clean Up Your Inbox for GoodTen minutes a day. Ordered so the first week already feels different.
- Why Spam Filters Don't Stop EverythingNot a flaw in your provider. A property of the problem they're solving.
- Spam vs Phishing vs Junk Mail: What's the Difference?Three words used interchangeably for three different threats and one folder name.
- How Much Spam Is Normal?The useful question isn't how much, it's whether it's growing and whether you can trace it.
- Should You Abandon an Email Address That's Full of Spam?A tempting reset that fixes nothing structurally — unless you change what you do next.
- How to Audit Every Account Tied to Your Email AddressMost people have three times more accounts than they'd guess. Here's how to find them.
- How Many Email Aliases Should You Have?The right number is however many organisations have your address. That's the whole answer.
- Can You Delete an Email Alias?Delete and disable sound interchangeable. On a catch-all domain they behave very differently.
- Will Websites Block My Email Alias?It happens, it's uncommon on your own domain, and there's a simple fallback.
- Do Email Aliases Actually Hide Your Identity?They hide your inbox. They do not hide you — and the difference matters.
- Why Forwarded Mail Sometimes Fails: SPF, DKIM and DMARCThe technical reason forwarded mail occasionally misbehaves — and the parts you can fix.
- WHOIS Privacy: Don't Publish Your Name With Your DomainRegister a domain carelessly and you solve an email exposure by creating a bigger one.
- Is Your Email on the Dark Web? What That Actually MeansA phrase built for selling subscriptions. Here's the unglamorous reality behind it.
- How and Where to Report Spam EmailTwo different kinds of reporting, doing two different jobs. Most people only do one.
- How to Stop Recruiter SpamYou published your address to be found. The fix is controlling which address that is.
- How to Keep a Brand-New Email Address Spam-FreeThe only time prevention is genuinely available. Most people waste it in a week.
- Email Aliases and Two-Factor Authentication2FA codes work fine through an alias. The failure mode is elsewhere, and it's worth understanding.
- Email Aliases for Small BusinessMost alias advice assumes one person. Running this for a business changes several assumptions.
- Subdomain Aliases vs Catch-All: Which Setup Is Better?Two ways to get addresses that exist the moment you type them, with different blast radii.
- How to Move Your Aliases to Another ServiceOne of these takes ten minutes. The other takes months. The difference is decided years earlier.
- Are Email Aliases Legal?Entirely legal. The interesting question is a different one, about terms rather than law.
- People Search Sites ExplainedThe most visible end of the data industry, and the one with real-world consequences.
- How to Stop Data Brokers Getting Your Email in the First PlaceRemoval fights the output. This is about the inputs, which is the half you control.
- Free Alternatives to Paid Data Removal ServicesThree free routes, honestly assessed, including what they don't reach.
- Six Email Privacy Myths Worth RetiringSix things a lot of people believe, each of which leads to the wrong action.
- What to Do If Your Email Is on a Spam ListThere is no list, and no removal desk. Here's what's actually true and what to do.
- How to Stop Charity and Political Fundraising EmailThe category where unsubscribing works least well — and the reasons are structural.
- Email Aliases for Job HuntingJob hunting is a temporary state that produces permanent mail. Aliases fix the asymmetry.
- Email Aliases for FamiliesHouseholds break most of the assumptions in single-user alias advice.
- How to Build a Private Email System That Actually Holds UpNot a product recommendation. A structure, with the trade-offs at each layer named.
- Secure Email vs Private Email: Different ProblemsTwo words used interchangeably for two unrelated problems, with two different fixes.
- Email Privacy at Work: What Your Employer Can SeeAssume your work mail is readable by your employer, because it generally is.
- How to Remove Your Email Address From Google SearchRemoving it from Google without removing it from the page is the mistake that wastes weeks.
- How to Stop Bots Harvesting the Email Address on Your WebsiteObfuscation stopped working around 2005. Here's what's left.
- What Your Email Address Reveals About YouMore than you'd expect, and some of it before the message is even read.
- GDPR Erasure Requests: How to Ask a Company to Delete Your DataA genuinely strong right, with limits worth knowing before you rely on it.
- You Signed Up for One Thing and Now Everyone Emails YouThe clearest example of the whole problem, and the easiest one to diagnose.
- How to Get Less Spam in iCloud MailApple gives you two tools most providers don't. Here's how far they get you.
- How to Get Less Spam in Yahoo MailYahoo has a feature most providers lack, and a history that works against you.
- How to Get Less Spam in Proton MailProton solves the message-privacy problem well. Spam is a different problem.
- How to Audit Your Email Exposure in an AfternoonTwo hours, no cost, and you stop guessing about where you actually stand.
- Email Privacy for Travel and Hotel BookingsHigh-volume, high-stakes signups where you cannot afford a missed confirmation.
- Email Privacy When Selling on MarketplacesBuyers are not companies. The risks are different and so is the setup.
- Is an Email Address Personal Data?A definitional question with real, usable consequences.
- CCPA and Your Email Address: What Californians Can Actually DoThe strongest set of consumer privacy rights in the US, and how to use them.
- What Is a Suppression List?The unglamorous plumbing that makes opting out actually stick.
- Data Broker vs Data Processor vs Data ControllerKnowing which is which tells you who is actually obliged to respond.
- Firefox Relay AlternativesRelay is good value, so leaving usually means you need something specific it doesn't do.
- Email Leaks, Spam Calls and Texts: What's Actually ConnectedThe connection is real but indirect, and it changes what you should actually do.
- Private Email Providers, Compared on What Actually DiffersFour axes that actually separate them, and one that mostly doesn't.
- Email Privacy for Journalists and Activists (and Why Aliases Aren't Enough)Written to talk you out of relying on the wrong tool, not to sell you one.
- State Data Broker Registries: California, Vermont, Texas, OregonA public list of who's in the business — useful even where you can't act on it directly.
- How to Opt Out of the Biggest Data BrokersA method rather than a list, because the right list is different for everyone.
- What Your Data Is Actually Worth to a BrokerThe honest answer is unflattering, and it explains the whole business model.
- Credit Header Data: The Quietest Source of Your Personal InformationOne of the least visible and most consequential data sources about you.
- DuckDuckGo Email Protection AlternativesHard to beat on price. Here's when something else still makes sense.
- Incogni Review: What It Does, What It Doesn'tWe compete adjacent to this, so read it with that in mind — here's the honest version anyway.
- An Email System for Digital NomadsThe recovery problem is the one that catches people out, not the wifi.
- How to Move Off an Email Address That's Beyond SavingCompromise is a security problem, not a spam problem, and it changes the order of operations.