The newest version of the iPhone operating system, iOS 15, has new privacy features for people who pay for iCloud storage.
One of the handiest new features is the ability to create a temporary email address — an address that’s not linked to your identity but still forwards messages to your inbox. It’s called “Hide My Mail.”
These burner emails are good for signing up in forms on the web that you might not want to share your main email address with, Apple said when it announced the feature in June. Users can spin up as many burner email addresses as they need and delete them when it’s convenient.
However, there’s a catch: Users have to pay for iCloud storage. Hide My Email is part of iCloud+, a new set of privacy features for people who pay Apple for iCloud storage.
Here’s how it works:
Making a new email address
- Make sure you are subscribed to get additional iCloud storage. Hide My Mail works with any iCloud subscription, even the 50GB plan that costs $0.99 per month.
- Launch the Settings app. It’s the one that looks like gears.
- Tap your Apple ID name, at the top of the screen.
- Tap iCloud — it should say which storage plan you have.
- Tap Hide My Email.
- Tap Create New Address.
- Fill out the form — you can give each burner email address a label and ask for a different randomly generated burner address.
- When you’re done creating the email, you can use it anywhere, and it will forward messages to your Apple ID email account.
Change forwarding address
- If you’d like to forward emails from burner emails to another email address, that’s easy too.
- Launch the Settings app.
- Tap your Apple ID name, at the top of the screen.
- Tap iCloud, then Hide My Email.
- Scroll to the bottom of the screen. You should see a box called “Forward To.”
- You might have to set up a new email address in your iCloud account — you can’t just plug in any email address.