Disposible e-mail addresses—Spam Gourmet Tutorial & Tips
Spam Gourmet is a great free and non-profit service I've been using without complaint for many years (I have no other association with them). It is simply a source of infinite, automatic, disposable e-mail addresses, which can be set-up once and forgotten, or individually managed/disabled at any time, should someone start sending you unwanted junk. It has followed me across many e-mail service changes, and done more than anything else to make e-mail usable. "Your message stats: 1,003 forwarded, 12,809 eaten. You have 201 disposable address(es)." That's a pretty good, long record of blocking the junk I don't want.
While you can start using the service yourself, easily enough, I've compiled a few tips for new users based on years of hard-won knowledge, specifically intended to make it infinitely easier to remember what disposable addresses you've used when you need to sign-in to a site once again.
Step One: Go and sign-up to create an account. Pick a good user name (for this tutorial, we'll use "sguser"), because you'll be stuck using it regularly for many years. You need to supply them with your real e-mail address as well.
* https://www.spamgourmet.com/
Step Two: Choose the available domain you like best, and stick with it. In this tutorial, we'll use "spameater.org":
- spamgourmet.net
- spamgourmet.org
- spamcannon.net
- antichef.com
- antichef.net
- neverbox.com
- recursor.net
- dfgh.net
- spameater.org
- xoxy.net
Step Three: Log-in to your account, and click the "Advanced Mode" tab near the top:
* https://www.spamgourmet.com/index.pl?advanced=1
Scroll down to "Default number", type in "20" and click "Save". This makes it practical to use an address like "spam.sguser@spameater.org" without including a hard-coded number in it all the time.
Step Four: Start using your disposable e-mail addresses
Now you simply give out $SOMEWORD.$USERNAME@$DOMAIN as your e-mail address, and spam gourmet will forward it to your real account. To keep things simple and sane, use the name of the site that's asking for your address... "pipedot", "youtube", "walmart", etc. So, you would sign-up for a youtube account using the e-mail address of: youtube.sguser@spameater.org Nothing could be simpler.
If you need more than one disposable address per site (for different accounts) maybe append a number, like "pipedot2". But remember, it is VERY important that you keep these address as SIMPLE AND MEMORABLE AS POSSIBLE, because you WILL have to remember them, years later. If you have to guess what variation on the word "youtube" you used, years later, possibly with a number in there (or not), and any of those variations may have been to any one of the TEN spam gourmet domains, you'll quickly run out of attempts to guess what it was. Keep it simple!
Step Five: Management. Log-in to your account, and click the "Advanced Mode" tab near the top:
* https://www.spamgourmet.com/index.pl?advanced=1
Just click on that "Search Addresses" button (no need to type anything)... That will take you to a page that lists ALL the spam gourmet e-mail addresses you've ever used (none yet, of course), how many e-mails they've gotten, and whether new e-mails are allowed through.
* https://www.spamgourmet.com/index.pl?myemails=1&searchterms=
From there you click on any one of them, and can set how many "remaining messages" are allowed to go that address. If one of those disposable addresses is getting lots of spam, you change the number to "0" and then "update" and you won't get any more. However, if you're getting nothing but good and legitimate e-mails through it, which you want to keep receiving, you can periodically come back and set that number to "20", which is the maximum allowed, each time you visit this page. After getting the next 20 e-mails, you'll have to come back and update it again, but it's a very small burden.
Enjoy your newly spam-free inbox, and not fearing handing out an e-mail address upon request. If you're happy with the service, consider buying something from the store, or just donating a few dollars.
While you can start using the service yourself, easily enough, I've compiled a few tips for new users based on years of hard-won knowledge, specifically intended to make it infinitely easier to remember what disposable addresses you've used when you need to sign-in to a site once again.
Step One: Go and sign-up to create an account. Pick a good user name (for this tutorial, we'll use "sguser"), because you'll be stuck using it regularly for many years. You need to supply them with your real e-mail address as well.
* https://www.spamgourmet.com/
Step Two: Choose the available domain you like best, and stick with it. In this tutorial, we'll use "spameater.org":
- spamgourmet.net
- spamgourmet.org
- spamcannon.net
- antichef.com
- antichef.net
- neverbox.com
- recursor.net
- dfgh.net
- spameater.org
- xoxy.net
Step Three: Log-in to your account, and click the "Advanced Mode" tab near the top:
* https://www.spamgourmet.com/index.pl?advanced=1
Scroll down to "Default number", type in "20" and click "Save". This makes it practical to use an address like "spam.sguser@spameater.org" without including a hard-coded number in it all the time.
Step Four: Start using your disposable e-mail addresses
Now you simply give out $SOMEWORD.$USERNAME@$DOMAIN as your e-mail address, and spam gourmet will forward it to your real account. To keep things simple and sane, use the name of the site that's asking for your address... "pipedot", "youtube", "walmart", etc. So, you would sign-up for a youtube account using the e-mail address of: youtube.sguser@spameater.org Nothing could be simpler.
If you need more than one disposable address per site (for different accounts) maybe append a number, like "pipedot2". But remember, it is VERY important that you keep these address as SIMPLE AND MEMORABLE AS POSSIBLE, because you WILL have to remember them, years later. If you have to guess what variation on the word "youtube" you used, years later, possibly with a number in there (or not), and any of those variations may have been to any one of the TEN spam gourmet domains, you'll quickly run out of attempts to guess what it was. Keep it simple!
Step Five: Management. Log-in to your account, and click the "Advanced Mode" tab near the top:
* https://www.spamgourmet.com/index.pl?advanced=1
Just click on that "Search Addresses" button (no need to type anything)... That will take you to a page that lists ALL the spam gourmet e-mail addresses you've ever used (none yet, of course), how many e-mails they've gotten, and whether new e-mails are allowed through.
* https://www.spamgourmet.com/index.pl?myemails=1&searchterms=
From there you click on any one of them, and can set how many "remaining messages" are allowed to go that address. If one of those disposable addresses is getting lots of spam, you change the number to "0" and then "update" and you won't get any more. However, if you're getting nothing but good and legitimate e-mails through it, which you want to keep receiving, you can periodically come back and set that number to "20", which is the maximum allowed, each time you visit this page. After getting the next 20 e-mails, you'll have to come back and update it again, but it's a very small burden.
Enjoy your newly spam-free inbox, and not fearing handing out an e-mail address upon request. If you're happy with the service, consider buying something from the store, or just donating a few dollars.