Domain names for catch all email aliases (lemmy.ca)

submitted 4 days ago by spinning_disk_engineer@lemmy.ca to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

12 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm looking into getting some domains for email, so I don't need to use the same few addresses for everything. In doing this, the domain name itself becomes the identity, but it's also entirely arbitrary.

What is a good method to choose domain names so that they look more or less normal? Catch all addresses can of course be detected in SMTP, but the idea is just to not look suspicious. Would anyone be comfortable sharing the constructions they use? (though not the domains themselves, for obvious reasons) Should I use subdomains for the things that can safely be correlated, (as spam defense) or is it better to only use different mailboxes on one domain?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] pHr34kY@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

I set up my postfix server so that anything after a hyphen ("-") becomes a wildcard. It like Gmail's "plus addressing", but the hyphen is more subtle. It means multiple users can make infinite aliases on one domain.

So, "user@domain.com" has the same mailbox as "user-somesuffix@domain.com".

[-] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 3 points 4 days ago

Plus adressing is not only gmail but part of the E-Mail standard btw.

[-] somerandomperson@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 days ago

How did you do that?

[-] domi@lemmy.secnd.me 3 points 4 days ago

I'm not OP but I use mailcow to host my mail and it comes with the + aliases by default. So mail+google@example.org goes to mail@example.org.

You can also do fully random aliases on demand, both time limited and permanently. Useful for those few services that do not accept + in their email fields.

https://docs.mailcow.email/

this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2025

13 points (93.3% liked)

Privacy

40679 readers

988 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS