Temp mail is a temporary email address you can use to receive messages without giving out your real one. You open a site like temp-mail.you, get a random address that works immediately, and use it for whatever you need. When you're done, the address and its messages get deleted. Your real inbox never sees any of it.
The whole process takes about 5 seconds. No forms to fill out, no passwords to remember, no phone number required. You just get an inbox that works.
When you visit temp-mail.you, the server generates a random email address and assigns it to your browser session. Behind the scenes, an SMTP server (we use Haraka) is configured to accept mail for that address. When someone sends an email to it, the server receives the message, stores it temporarily, and pushes it to your browser in real time.
You see the email appear in your inbox within seconds of it being sent. There's no polling or manual refresh needed. The connection between your browser and the server stays open using Server-Sent Events, so new messages show up automatically.
After your session ends or the timer expires, the server deletes the address and all its messages. The SMTP server starts rejecting any new mail sent to that address. Nothing sticks around.
Most people use temp mail for the same handful of situations:
The common thread is accounts and sign-ups you don't plan to keep. If you're going to need password resets or two-factor auth on that account later, use your real email. For everything else, a throwaway address saves your inbox from years of follow-up spam.
Every time you type your real email into a sign-up form, that address gets stored in a database you don't control. Have I Been Pwned tracks over 700 breached sites. If your email was in any of them, it's sitting on lists that get traded between spammers and used for phishing campaigns.
A temporary email address breaks that chain. Even if the service you signed up for gets breached next year, the leaked address is one that no longer exists. It can't be used to reset your passwords, can't be linked to your identity, and can't receive phishing emails. The exposure is contained.
Some people create a "junk" Gmail for throwaway sign-ups. That works, but it has problems. Gmail still requires your phone number. Google still tracks everything you do with that account. The account still exists forever unless you manually delete it. And you still have to check a second inbox.
Temp mail requires nothing and cleans up after itself. You don't manage it, you don't log into it later, you don't accumulate spam in it. It exists for as long as you need it and then it's gone.
Temp mail is receive-only. You can't send messages from it. You also can't use it for accounts you need to keep long term. Banking, healthcare, government portals, your primary social media — all of these need a permanent email address you fully control.
Some platforms block known temporary email domains. This is common with services like Netflix, some banking apps, and social networks that do identity verification. For those, you'll need your real address. For the other 90% of sign-ups, temp mail works fine.
Most temp mail services are either slow to load, covered in ads that make the inbox hard to find, or only work in English. We built temp-mail.you to fix those problems.
The site works in 20 languages including Portuguese, Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Arabic, Korean, and Chinese. Each language has its own translated interface, blog content, and FAQ. Arabic renders right-to-left correctly. CJK characters display properly.
There's no tracking on the site. No Google Analytics, no advertising cookies, no browser fingerprinting. The only data stored is the temporary address and its messages, and those get deleted automatically.
If you need a quick email address without the hassle, open temp-mail.you and one is already waiting for you.