# Apple Hide My Email 66 Hacker News commenters recommended Apple Hide My Email and 56 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 11 of 13 months. **Verdict:** Recommended for creating disposable addresses that forward to your inbox, stopping spam and tracing leaks. Main caveat: some services block it, and critics worry about account bans. ## Why people recommend it - Generate aliases quickly on the fly (5 comments): "iCloud has a great feature that allows you to generate unique aliases on the fly quickly and easily" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47649805)) "If you use iCloud+ you can generate email aliases using a Raycast extension or a browser extension" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47615528)) "you've already got the ability to generate virtual email addresses on the fly" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46387690)) - Stops spam from leaked addresses (5 comments): "Hide My Email has been essential to keep my digital life protected from abusive mail lists" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48561464)) "No more spam, whenever I start receiving spam to a Hide My Email address, I deactivate it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46749487)) "As a result of being able to blackhole the leaked addresses I no longer get any spam" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49429728)) - Shows which site leaked your email (3 comments): "it's kind of cool having one-per-site though so you can tell who the "rat" is" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48563464)) "It's fantastic, and also lets you track exactly who leaked your email." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48402729)) "it also helps prevent correlation across accounts and websites as data leaks occur" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48563680)) - Cheap with iCloud+ subscription (2 comments): "I pay mainly for Hide My Email, just to organise things per domain, and it's cheap." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49177743)) "if you have iCloud+ Apple's($0.99/month) hide my email is good" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48441762)) ## What people warn about - Can expose your real address (3 comments): "a bug in some random API has allowed for the “hidden” Apple account to be revealed because they resolve hide my emails to the original internally" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49427166)) "This alone could expose you by accident, since anyone would expect to reply with HME in any case, but you get exposed either way." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48758831)) "For all of them Hide My Email avoids having to disclose your real email address. This is broken now." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48562518)) - Risk of bounces or account bans (2 comments): "Using iCloud solves those problems, but puts you at risk of getting your account banned and loosing access to those emails" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48562369)) "If you merely deactivate your email address rather than closing your account, the next time a legitimate service sends you email it will bounce." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49427488)) - Walled garden and Apple lock-in (3 comments): "It's an additional layer of wall for their walled garden to keep the technically proficient users that are more likely to hop walls." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49428613)) "all these "privacy" features merely exist as excuse for getting people to hand off their mails to Apple" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48753843)) "Since when did we start accepting that paying for providing OAuth sign-in for other companies is good?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49430583)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [SimpleLogin](https://hackerapproved.com/p/simplelogin.md): 21 recommend - [addy.io](https://hackerapproved.com/p/addy-io.md): 11 recommend - [Fastmail Masked Email](https://hackerapproved.com/p/fastmail-masked-email.md): 10 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://www.apple.com/icloud/) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Apple Hide My Email", https://hackerapproved.com/p/apple-hide-my-email/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).