Email Tools
What Are the Best Hide My Email Alternatives in 2026?
The best hide my email alternatives to Apple's iCloud+ feature are SimpleLogin (Premium at $36 per year), Addy.io (Lite from $1 per month billed yearly), Fastmail (from $36 per year), and DuckDuckGo Email Protection (free). Every price was verified on official pricing pages on August 26, 2026, two days after Apple confirmed Hide My Email addresses stay on icloud.com.
What matters
- Apple confirmed on August 24, 2026 that iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses remain on icloud.com; only new Sign in with Apple relay addresses move to private.icloud.com later this year.
- SimpleLogin Premium runs $36 per year ($4 month-to-month) with unlimited aliases and custom domains; the free tier caps at 10 aliases.
- Addy.io is the budget pick: Lite at $1 per month billed yearly, Pro at $3 per month billed yearly or $4 month-to-month.
- Fastmail includes Masked Email in paid plans from $3 per month billed yearly ($36 per year) and supports your own domain addresses.
- DuckDuckGo Email Protection is free with no paid tier listed, but it requires the DuckDuckGo browser or extension.
What is Hide My Email, and what changed in August 2026?
Hide My Email is an Apple service included in every iCloud+ plan. It generates random @icloud.com addresses that forward to your real inbox, so a leaked address can be deleted without exposing your main mailbox.
On August 24, 2026, Apple published a developer announcement with two pieces of news. New Sign in with Apple addresses, previously issued on privaterelay.appleid.com, will be issued on private.icloud.com starting later this year. Existing addresses on privaterelay.appleid.com will continue to work and forward mail without interruption. And after reviewing community feedback, Apple confirmed that iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com.
iCloud+ starts at $0.99 per month for 50GB on Apple's pricing page, with 200GB at $2.99 per month and 2TB at $9.99 per month; every tier includes Hide My Email, iCloud Private Relay, and the Custom Email Domain feature.
For buyers, the takeaway is simple: existing Hide My Email aliases keep working and Apple is not retiring the feature. The part that needs action sits with developers, per Apple's announcement: account systems, email validation logic, and allowlists must accept addresses on the new private.icloud.com domain later this year.
The best hide my email alternatives at a glance
Four services cover the realistic alternatives to Apple's alias feature. Prices below were verified on each vendor's official page on August 26, 2026; the comparison table further down puts them side by side.
- SimpleLogin for unlimited aliases and custom domains at $36 per year.
- Addy.io for the cheapest paid tier at $1 per month billed yearly, with open-source code.
- Fastmail for a full paid mailbox with masked addresses built in, from $36 per year.
- DuckDuckGo Email Protection for a free option that requires the DuckDuckGo browser or extension.
None of these is a free lunch. SimpleLogin's free tier caps at 10 aliases, Addy.io's free tier caps active aliases at 10 with 10MB of monthly bandwidth, and DuckDuckGo's service is tied to its own browser and extension.
SimpleLogin: unlimited aliases for $36 a year
SimpleLogin is an alias forwarding service owned by Proton, the company behind Proton Mail. Its official pricing page lists a Free plan with 10 aliases and Premium at $36 per year or $4 billed monthly.
Premium removes the alias cap, adds unlimited custom domains and catch-all domains, and now includes Proton Pass Premium features. Free users get reply from alias, unlimited bandwidth, browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, plus iOS and Android apps.
The angle for buyers: aliases behave like real mailboxes, replies go out from the alias without exposing your address, and Proton ownership lowers the risk of the service disappearing.
Addy.io: the open-source budget option
Addy.io publishes its plans directly on its home page. Free costs $0 with unlimited standard alias creation, 10 active shared-domain aliases, 1 recipient, 2 alias domains, and 10MB of monthly bandwidth.
Lite runs $1 per month billed yearly and raises the limits to 50 active aliases, 5 recipients, 6 alias domains, and 1 custom domain. Pro runs $3 per month billed yearly or $4 month-to-month, with unlimited active aliases, 20 custom domains, 30 recipients, and unlimited bandwidth.
Replying and sending from aliases is a paid-only feature. The codebase is open source, self-hosting is supported, and the new Duo ($4.50 per month) and Family ($7.50 per month) plans share Pro across independent accounts.
Fastmail: masked email inside a full email provider
Fastmail's pricing page lists Basic at $3 per user per month billed yearly ($36 for 12 months) and Standard at $5 per month billed yearly ($60 for 12 months), each with a 30-day free trial.
Every plan includes Masked Email, which the pricing page describes as a way to hide your address and secure logins, plus support for your own domains to create custom addresses. Calendars, contacts, and a real inbox come in the same subscription.
Fastmail suits buyers who want one provider for business mail and alias protection instead of a forwarding service layered on top of Gmail or Outlook.
DuckDuckGo Email Protection: the free option
DuckDuckGo's official email page lists no pricing or paid tier, which makes Email Protection the only free service in this roundup (verified August 26, 2026).
The same page states that Email Protection requires the DuckDuckGo extension in the current browser, with Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android listed as supported platforms.
The trade-off is structural: the service lives inside DuckDuckGo's browser and extension, so it is not a replacement for a custom-domain alias service. Treat it as a zero-cost first layer rather than the answer to business email hygiene.
Who should switch from iCloud+ Hide My Email?
Apple's August 24 announcement removes the pressure to migrate: Hide My Email addresses stay on icloud.com, so existing aliases are not going anywhere. If you already pay for iCloud+ at $0.99 per month or more, keeping Apple's aliases is the zero-friction option.
Switch to SimpleLogin or Addy.io when you need aliases that are not tied to an Apple ID: unlimited custom-domain aliases for a business, or a planned move off Apple hardware. SimpleLogin Premium costs $36 per year; Addy.io Lite costs $12 per year.
Pick Fastmail when the goal is a paid business mailbox with masked addresses included, from $36 per year. Pick DuckDuckGo when the budget is zero and you already use the DuckDuckGo browser.
The honest catch: alias services invoice annually, free tiers enforce hard limits, and a service you stop paying for stops forwarding. Read the limits on the free tier before you route real business mail through it.
At a glance
| Service | Price | Aliases and domains | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| iCloud+ Hide My Email | Included with iCloud+, from $0.99 per month | Aliases with every plan; custom email domain included | Apple users who already pay for iCloud+ |
| SimpleLogin | Free; Premium $36 per year or $4 per month | 10 aliases free; unlimited aliases and custom domains on Premium | Unlimited aliases plus Proton Pass features |
| Addy.io | Free; Lite $1 per month billed yearly; Pro $3 per month billed yearly or $4 per month | Unlimited alias creation; 10 active free, 50 on Lite; 1 custom domain on Lite, 20 on Pro | Budget buyers and open-source fans |
| Fastmail | From $3 per month billed yearly ($36 per year) | Masked Email included; own domains supported | A full paid mailbox with alias protection |
| DuckDuckGo Email Protection | Free (no paid tier listed) | Requires the DuckDuckGo extension or browser | Zero-cost protection for DuckDuckGo users |
FAQ
Is Apple's Hide My Email going away?
No. Apple announced on August 24, 2026 that iCloud+ Hide My Email addresses will remain on icloud.com after reviewing community feedback. What changes is the relay domain for new Sign in with Apple addresses, which move to private.icloud.com later this year; existing addresses keep forwarding without interruption.
Is DuckDuckGo Email Protection really free?
Yes. The official page lists no pricing or paid tier as of August 26, 2026. The trade-offs are that the service requires the DuckDuckGo browser or extension and does not replace a custom-domain alias service.
SimpleLogin vs Addy.io: which email alias service is better?
SimpleLogin Premium ($36 per year) delivers unlimited aliases and custom domains and bundles Proton Pass Premium. Addy.io is cheaper (Lite at $1 per month billed yearly) and open source, but its free tier caps active aliases at 10 and bandwidth at 10MB per month. Choose SimpleLogin for the Proton ecosystem, Addy.io for budget and open source.