Is it possible to originate email from a hidden email address?

[pedzsan]

Apple has a nice feature called Hide My Email. But sometimes I need to original an email and send it out. In my case, I had a debit card. I created a Hide My Email address and used it during registration. I now need to communicate with them via email and they can not find my account because the email I send is from a different address. This has come up a few times actually.

The Mail app on macOS (and iOS) allows only a selection of email addresses to send from. As far as I know, it doesn't allow you to just type in an address or use one of the Hide My Email addresses.

 

[PotentPeas]

I've looked into this before.

If you have received an email from the address that you want to send to (via the Hide My Email address), you can find that email, "copy" the "from" address, and send a new email to that address, and it will work.

If you want to send a completely fresh email to a completely new address (via your Hide My Email address), there is no way to do this.

...This is one reason why I have transitioned from iCloud Hide My Email to DuckDuckGo's similar private email service. They use a standard format for the in-between address so you can "construct" an address to send an outbound email to without having to have received an inbound one.

(The other reason is that I periodically had iCloud "Hide My Email" either cause a significant delay in my receipt of emails, or just swallow inbound emails completely and never deliver them, making it seem unreliable. I haven't had this with DDG.)

 

[pedzsan]

I've looked into this before.

If you have received an email from the address that you want to send to (via the Hide My Email address), you can find that email, "copy" the "from" address, and send a new email to that address, and it will work.

If you want to send a completely fresh email to a completely new address (via your Hide My Email address), there is no way to do this.

...This is one reason why I have transitioned from iCloud Hide My Email to DuckDuckGo's similar private email service. They use a standard format for the in-between address so you can "construct" an address to send an outbound email to without having to have received an inbound one.

(The other reason is that I periodically had iCloud "Hide My Email" either cause a significant delay in my receipt of emails, or just swallow inbound emails completely and never deliver them, making it seem unreliable. I haven't had this with DDG.)

Thank you but I don't understand.

Do you use macOS Mail as your mail app? The "in-between" address is a normal address: user@host.tld but I don't see a way to enter it into the From field in an out going email using Mail.app on macOS or iOS.

Your idea of reusing an email that I received is a good one. I think actually I have done that before now that you mention it.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Is the "hidden" address @iCloud.com or @privaterelay.appleid.com?

If it's @iCloud.com it's Hide My Email, you "Should" be able to send from it by following that article.
If it's @privaterelay.appleid.com then it's Sign in with Apple

 

[PotentPeas]

Thank you but I don't understand.

Do you use macOS Mail as your mail app?

I use Thunderbird, not the Mail app. I suppose the Mail app might be "aware" of Hide My Email and hide or abstract some of this away.

When you receive an email via your "hide my email" address, the "from" address for the mail delivered to you is something like:
forums_at_macrumors_com_s4vt3d20bq2j9b_04927189@icloud.com

This is what I am referring to as the "in-between" address. You derive the "original" from address if you look at that, but all of those characters at the end, Apple just made up, and they are used on their end in part to identify what "hide my email" address that you are using in the case that you want to send a reply.

Replying to this address will send a mail "from" your hide my email address "to" the original sender. However, unless you have received a message from the sender that you want to send to, there's no way to figure out what "in-between" address you should use.

Again... the Apple Mail app might hide this from you, which would make it even more confusing to figure out.

 

[pedzsan]

I use Thunderbird, not the Mail app. I suppose the Mail app might be "aware" of Hide My Email and hide or abstract some of this away.

When you receive an email via your "hide my email" address, the "from" address for the mail delivered to you is something like:
forums_at_macrumors_com_s4vt3d20bq2j9b_04927189@icloud.com

This is what I am referring to as the "in-between" address. You derive the "original" from address if you look at that, but all of those characters at the end, Apple just made up, and they are used on their end in part to identify what "hide my email" address that you are using in the case that you want to send a reply.

Replying to this address will send a mail "from" your hide my email address "to" the original sender. However, unless you have received a message from the sender that you want to send to, there's no way to figure out what "in-between" address you should use.

Again... the Apple Mail app might hide this from you, which would make it even more confusing to figure out.

Yes. All of what you said is what I see. The problem is that most (all?) of the mail via these addresses come from something like noreply@bigcorp.com and I need to send an email to something like support@bigcorp.com. The Mail app restricts the From field to just the set of email addresses that you receive email from plus it allows you to generate a new Hide My Email which kinda solves the problem. I could go that path and then change the email address I have registered at bigcorp to the new address.

Alternatively, I could set up either the mail command or EMacs’ mail facility because I’m sure it doesn’t restrict the addresses but that seems like a lot of work. And, it seems like this would be a general problem for others.

 

[svenmany]

This limitation of Apple's private emails make it useless for my needs. It seems like an astonishing oversight by Apple unless they are intentionally limiting its usage to stop some imagined abuse by their customers.

I use Fastmail which has a more flexible version of this feature.

 

[vanishing]

iCloud hide my email is a half-assed service, it’s ok for incoming emails but pretty useless when you reply, it appears to work sometimes, but if you correspond back & forth you’ll see a mess in the to & from addresses in each message.

You can use the other iCloud alias which you can reply to. You get 3 aliases via iCloud.com - using a web browser, go into mail, settings and set up an alias there, then (still in settings) make sure you tick the alias accounts you want to send and receive from (sorry I can’t remember the exact description as I no longer have iCloud)

Alternatively buy a cheap domain, get a good email provider, use Thunderbird and create your own bespoke hide my emails - with the ability to reply (called identities). You’ll have peace of mind and total control instead of wondering if Apple are keeping a log of your aliases.