5 effective methods
Have you ever had the need to send anonymous emails? One reason may be to secretly declare your love to someone. Or you could be a reporter who has to communicate with a whistleblower ... there are so many (legitimate) reasons for wanting to send anonymous emails.
Several online services allow you to do this for free. Alternatively, you could use a VPN and a one-time email account.
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Nowadays it's easy to send emails without revealing your real identity. In this article, we'll teach you how to send anonymous emails using five of the most effective methods we've found around.
1) Temporary email account + VPN
Using a web-based email account like Gmail is a great choice. A Gmail account can be signed up without providing real personal information, then you can use that address as a kind of temporary email account.
When sending anonymous emails from Gmail, the starting IP is that of Google's servers, not that of your computer. This is a very convenient way to hide your real IP address from the recipient's eyes.
If someone wanted to track the IP that appears when sending an email from their Gmail online account, they would just get to the closest Google server. That said, the real IP address is stored on Google's servers, so if any public security authority requests it, Google should provide it to them.
If this level of privacy isn't enough for you, you can add another level of anonymization by encrypting your connection with a VPN service. Better avoid the free ones and turn to popular VPNs like ExpressVPN or CyberGhost.
Once connected, you can use Gmail through the encrypted VPN. Now, when you log into your Gmail account to send an email, the source IP will always be shown as one of Google's servers, but with two differences: the first is that the Google server will most likely not be near you (from point geographically), the second is that if Google were asked to show your actual IP they could only provide the IP of the VPN service.
2) Client email + VPN
Another solution that avoids the need to use any anonymous email service is to use an email client such as Thunderbird on PC.
To make this approach work you will need to follow three steps:
- create a disposable email account (Gmail is fine too)
- install Thunderbird (or any other email client) and connect it to the newly created email account
- connect to a VPN service
Open your favorite VPN service, then, and make sure your computer has a remote address. Now you can send an email with the disposable account using the mail client as you normally would.
The difference is that now, instead of the header containing the actual source IP address, it will show the IP address of the VPN located somewhere. It's a quick and easy way to send anonymous emails with minimal effort.
3) AnonEmail
AnonEmail is a service offered by the famous anonymizer AnonyMouse which allows you to send anonymous emails by resending the email several times through random nodes, making reverse tracking impossible.
In AnonEmail you write the recipient, the subject and a text message. Unlike many other services, AnonEmail does not store your IP (at least it seems so).
As an ancillary security measure, AnonEmail waits an indefinite period of time before actually sending the email. The reason? In this way, no one will be able to prove your "guilt" based on time or podizione, or make geographical presumptions based on time zones.
But be careful, because the investigations of the authorities can prove difficult, but not impossible ... so do not commit anything illegal because there are no 100% safe methods to "hide".
4) Send Anonymous Mail
Just like the name says in English, this is also a web-based service for email anonymization. While it does not guarantee the complete anonymity of AnonEmail, it is the easiest option to use.
You can specify the sender's address and a fake departure address for your secret message. This service records your IP address, so you will need to use a VPN service if you want to cover your tracks.
Also, neither Send Anonymous Mail nor allow the recipient to reply to the email, so these solutions are only ideal if you need to send a one-way message.
5) ProtonMail
If you need a service that gives the possibility to reply to the recipient in a completely secure and anonymous way, Protonmail it is a good solution, and has been used successfully by journalists in fairly "critical" political regimes.
Some of ProtonMail's features include:
- end-to-end encryption: Messages are not only encrypted when sent from ProtonMail servers, but all saved messages are also encrypted. Without logging into your ProtonMail account, no one can access your messages.
- user data is private: ProtonMail's encryption process, which uses an encryption key on your computer, means that not even ProtonMail system administrators can access your messages. As a disadvantage, however, this means that not even they will be able to recover your account (eventually).
- open source encryption: Since ProtonMail takes advantage of open source encryption libraries, you can be sure that there are no "backdoors" that allow anyone to access your emails. Including hackers or system administrators.
