You have a number of different options when it comes to sending anonymous emails. These include the following:
- Using an anonymous email service
- Signing up for a burner email account
We recommend giving ProtonMail a try. With their easy-to-use interface and affordable pricing tiers, they are one of the leading anonymous email options available.
Also, be sure to take into account the following tips:
- Sign up for a burner email using a VPN to keep your IP address private.
- Don’t access your anonymous email account at home.
- Never state your personal information anywhere.
- Use fake information as much as possible.
- When signing up for and signing in to an anonymous email account, use a VPN to hide your IP:
Proton VPN
For more information about sending anonymous emails, read the article below.
Have you been trying to figure out how to send an anonymous email? Maybe you work as a journalist and need to communicate with sources anonymously. Or you could be trying to send sensitive information and don’t want it traced back to you. No matter the reason, sending anonymous emails is essential for a lot of people on a daily basis.
If you want to send an email anonymously, but are unsure of where to begin, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll explain how you can send anonymous and untraceable emails, and provide some additional tips when it comes to sending emails without having them traced back to you.
When you’re trying to send an anonymous email, it’s important that you do so properly the first time to ensure your privacy. We’ll help make sure each anonymous email you send keeps your name and personal information away from any prying eyes by giving you advice.
How to Send Untraceable Emails
In order to send an anonymous email, you have to make sure that the email can’t be traced back to you in any way. That doesn’t just mean you have to use an anonymous email address, you also have to make sure that the email is encrypted and others can’t see the IP address of the place the mail originates from. The two most common ways to email anonymously are:
- Send emails using an anonymous email service.
- Send emails using a burner email account.
You can even combine the two to be extra safe: make a burner email account with an anonymous email service.
You’ll find some more information about burner emails in our article about the best temporary email services.
Using an anonymous email service to send a secure email
Anonymous email services specialize in providing users with a completely secure and anonymous way to send emails online. This is a great option if your aim is to not be tracked by external parties. These services usually require very little information of you when you sign up, and they can be set up to delete your emails from their servers automatically.
Anonymous email services keep your email secure in a variety of ways. First off, these secure email providers use end-to-end encryption. This makes these emails way harder to intercept than regular emails that go through an unencrypted tunnel. On top of that, they encrypt the emails themselves. This means that every email gets encoded so only authorized users can read it. Thus, even if someone manages to intercept this email (which is highly unlikely), they still can’t read it because the email itself is scrambled.
This encryption adds to the level of privacy, but doesn’t always help the usability. For example, because Google’s software can actually scan the contents of your emails, you’re able to search your inbox for subjects, contents, and files. A secure email provider such as ProtonMail chooses encryption and privacy over being able to search your email box, meaning that you can’t use a search bar to scan through your emails. This might make ProtonMail a bit less user-friendly, but a whole lot safer.
Also, a lot of secure email providers are situated in countries that don’t have to give up data to other countries. Certain countries share their information with others. It is best for a secure email provider to be situated in a country that doesn’t share its data and is not forced to keep track of certain data. Some examples of safe countries are Switzerland and the British Virgin Islands.
To summarize, a secure email provider helps you send anonymous emails because:
- They use end-to-end encryption between you and the recipient, making it harder for others to intercept the email.
- They encrypt the emails themselves as well, meaning that, even if someone manages to intercept the email, it’s encoded and therefore unreadable.
- They don’t need access to the contents of your emails for search purposes.
- Many secure email providers are located in a country that doesn’t have to share its data with other organizations.
- They don’t ask you for a lot of personal info when signing up for an email address.
- They can be set up to delete emails automatically.
By far the most popular and best anonymous email service right now is ProtonMail. ProtonMail is a secure email provider that offers both free and paid plans. They’re based in Switzerland and work with the highest levels of encryption and privacy. ProtonMail is easy to use and runs on open-source software. This is perfect if you want to send and receive emails anonymously. It even has PGP encryption fully integrated into its software. If you’re interested in using a secure email provider, be sure to try out ProtonMail by clicking the orange button below:
Using a burner email account to send an anonymous email
A burner email is an account you create for a singular, usually temporary purpose, such as sending an anonymous email or using it when signing up for different online platforms. If you want to be extra safe, you can use a secure emailing service provider as a burner account. This way, you won’t just be able to protect your identity by using an email account that doesn’t trace back to you, but you’ll also have the added benefit of having extra security on all emails you send.
Always make sure you use an email address that cannot be traced back to you in any way, shape, or form. Don’t use your name, address, date of birth, or similar information that can be used to identify you. The safest way is to use an anonymized string of characters.
Also, if you’re really looking to stay completely anonymous, you may want to use a VPN before you sign up and sign in to your burner email address. This ensures that not even the email provider has your actual IP address. A great VPN that has its own secure email service is ProtonVPN:
- Strong encryption
- Specialized servers
- Free subscription available
Tips to Send Anonymous Emails
Now that you have a better idea of the basics of sending anonymous emails, we’ll give you an overview of some basic security tips to protect your identity and personal information online. Here’s a clear list of tips to keep you protected:
- Use a VPN to mask your IP address before signing up or signing in to your secure email service and change your passwords regularly.
- Don’t access your anonymous email from your home Wi-Fi. Use a public hotspot.
- Create a new email account (a so-called burner email) when signing up for a new service or when you want to send an anonymous email.
- Never use your name, location, date of birth, or other information that can be traced back to you in your email address. It’s best to use a randomized string of characters as your email address name.
- Use fake information, such as a fake first and last name, when signing up for an email address.
- Don’t use your personal phone number to verify your email address. See if you can skip this step when signing up instead.
- This might speak for itself, but don’t put any personal information inside of your emails. Also, don’t enclose any files containing personal information.
If you’re truly privacy-conscious, you might even want to consider setting up a private workspace. You could, for example, use the tips from our article “How to Get on the Dark Web” to set up a workspace on a separate USB and use the Tor browser and/or a VPN to become completely anonymous. And if you really want to go the extra mile, you could even get a separate laptop that’s set up to protect your privacy as well as possible. But for most people, the tips above should be enough to protect your identity when sending an email.
How to Create an Anonymous Email Account
In order to create an anonymous email account, you first need to pick an email provider. For the purpose of this quick guide, we’re using the paid version of ProtonMail as our secure email provider of choice. This is the provider we would personally recommend, especially because you can use multiple addresses when choosing the paid version.
- Go to ProtonMail’s website at https://protonmail.com/ and grab a deal to get to the screen where you have to sign up by creating an email address and a password.
- Choose a username, password, and don’t fill in an email address to recover your ProtonMail information because this is less private.
- Log in using the credentials you just created.
- Click “Upgrade” and choose a subscription that’s to your liking.
- Choose cash or Bitcoin to pay for your subscription. These two payment methods are the best options for privacy.
And that’s it. That’s how you create an anonymous email account from scratch.
Why People May Want to Send Anonymous Emails
There are a number of situations in which you might want to send an anonymous email. Below you’ll find a quick overview of some of the reasons why you, or someone else, might want to send emails anonymously.
| Reason to send anonymous emails | Details |
|---|---|
| You want to avoid spam and tracking | When you log in to platforms or websites with your personal email address, you’re giving your personal information away to be used however these companies want. Some large tech companies collect this information and share it with third parties or use it themselves for advertising.
The best way to avoid spam messages in your primary email account is to use a secondary email address you don’t care about. If you’re trying to avoid third-party trackers, you should use a burner email that doesn’t contain any real personal details, along with a VPN and private browser such as Tor. |
| You work in a public-facing role | If your career regularly places you in the public eye (due to a job in politics or law enforcement, for example), you may need to use an anonymous email account when sending emails. This also applies to journalists, since they have to communicate with sources and share their findings throughout possibly sensitive investigations. |
| You’re a whistleblower or have to send ‘risky’ information | A whistleblower is someone who exposes certain information from a private setting to the public. A well-known whistleblower is Edward Snowden. But it could also be someone who publishes information about malpractice in their company for example.
When you send emails that contain dangerous or sensitive information, you’re putting your own safety on the line. If your identity is known, you could be faced with retaliation in the shape of being fired, blacklisted, or sued. These possible repercussions show just how important it is for whistleblowers to protect their identity. |
| You’re in a country with an oppressive regime | Another reason you may want to send anonymous emails is if you live in a country where your online activity is tracked by your government. This tracking would also include the emails you send, with the content of those emails possibly being read by unintended audiences.
This is particularly dangerous if you’re sending an email that contains information that could get you in legal trouble or put you at risk because of the political climate of the country you live in. |
Additional Resources
We have a number of useful articles and guides that’ll tell you even more about online anonymity and security. Here are just a few of the resources you should check out if you’re interested in knowing more about how to stay safe online:
- How to Browse the Internet Anonymously
- How to Hide or Change Your IP Address
- Who Can See Your Browsing History and the Websites You Visited?
- How to Create a Secure Password
Do you have a specific question about sending completely anonymous emails? Feel free to check out our FAQ down below!
No. It’s not the act of sending an anonymous email that’s illegal, but rather the potential contents of that email. If the message you’re sending breaks your country’s laws, then the message itself would be considered illegal. However, the way you send it isn’t illegal. For example. If you’re blackmailing or threatening someone anonymously through email, the blackmailing itself would be considered the illegal act.
The best way to create a completely untraceable email address is to use the services of an anonymous email provider, such as ProtonMail, along with a reputable VPN. Lastly, you could use these services through the Tor browser to ensure your personal information and IP address are completely hidden from anyone who might try to trace them.
While what’s considered the best anonymous email service depends on your needs, the most popular choice is ProtonMail. The reason so many people use ProtonMail is because it provides users with PGP encryption. It also has a zero-knowledge policy, meaning that no one can snoop on your messages.
We would advise against using Gmail if you want to send anonymous emails.
You could use Gmail to create a burner account with fake information. But that still isn’t the most private way to send an email. You do have to provide a phone number in order to verify the account, which may be a bad option depending on your situation.
Keep in mind that Google can still obtain your information from your phone number, as well as your location and online activity.
If you only have to receive emails, you can use an inbox-only email provider. One popular choice for this service is TrashMail, which gives you up to 25 disposable emails from 16 domains. TrashMail keeps your real address anonymous and has a lifespan option which will automatically delete the account after the set time has passed.
PGP encryption is used for sending encrypted emails and encrypting sensitive files. PGP is the standard for email security because it uses a combination of symmetric key encryption along with public-key encryption. Anonymous email providers use PGP encryption to keep your identity and personal information hidden and secure when sending and receiving emails.
