How To Send an Anonymous Email – The Ultimate Guide

Intro

There’s no denying that the concept of an anonymous email could seem mischievous and scandalous, but the truth is that there are several reasons why you might want to send an email anonymously. Whether you’re a journalist, a whistleblower, or a hopeless romantic, you’ll need to send an anonymous email at some point.

Emails are used for many things that require anonymity, such as account confirmations and love letters. One thing is for sure: mailboxes are home to some spicy things!

Unfortunately, by design, emails provide two-way communication that can identify you as the user. On the other hand, online privacy is becoming a pressing issue every day, and protecting personal information online is now a no-brainer.

The good news is that all is not lost – an anonymous email is one of the best ways to maintain online confidentiality. It helps you send and receive messages without revealing the user's identity. That way, you can ensure your data won't be leaked.

So, what exactly is an anonymous email, and why must you use it?

What’s an Anonymous Email?

An anonymous email is merely one that’s sent without revealing the sender's personal information or identity. Ideally, this is an email that doesn’t have any personal information or even technical details that can be used to trace the sender back.

Therefore, an anonymous email's primary goal is to ensure you remain private and confidential. Unfortunately, you should bear in mind that no email is 100 anonymous. However, using a secure, private email service with other excellent privacy tools will offer you the best opportunity to send seamless emails while you hide your identity.

Why Anonymous Email?

There are several legitimate reasons for one to use an anonymous email. Some of the common reasons include:

• When you want to get away from spam mail, trackers, and ads
• When you want some correspondences to remain anonymous – whether for personal or business use
• When you’re located in a region where the government actively monitors all the internet activities
• If you’re about to become a whistleblower for the company that you’re working for
• When you’re a journalist, and you want to keep your sources or yourself anonymous

Therefore, it’s evident that there are several reasons you might want to send an anonymous email; whichever the reason, anonymous emails are slowly becoming a common thing for most individuals.

How do Anonymous Emails Work?

An email is called anonymous when it hides any personally identifiable information. Some information that could give you away includes your name, the email address itself, information entered when the email account was created, and your IP address.

However, using an anonymous email service masks your IP address, and they don’t log user information. Perhaps, the services usually use end-to-end encryption to ensure that they protect the information of emails and that only the intended recipient can read the contents of the email.

So, how do you send an anonymous email?

How to Send an Anonymous Email

So now, how do you send an anonymous email?

To send a private email, you must hide your actual IP address and use a secure email service provider. There are several email platforms that you can consider. However, some popular platforms, such as Yahoo and Google, are exceptional in their simplicity and storage but lack security and privacy departments.

Also, it’s significant to note that if you truly want a private conversation, there’s no one solution—you should combine several methods to achieve the best combination of security and privacy. That way, you will identify some weak points in your daily browsing habits.

Sending an anonymous email starts with hiding your IP address; therefore, using the best VPN service is the first recommendation. Here are some of the methods you can use to send an anonymous email:

Use a VPN

A Virtual Private Network (VPN) routes your online traffic via a network of servers worldwide, helping to hide your real IP address from prying eyes or your Internet Service Provider (ISP).

Unfortunately, a VPN alone won’t make the email you send anonymous. Therefore, you need to use a VPN together with the other methods that we’ll talk about below.

However, you need to choose the best VPN service with the right qualities that adhere to the no-logs policy. That way, you can be assured that the VPN won't store any personal information that can be used to identify you in case the authorities call upon them.

Use an Anonymous and Encrypted Email Service Provider

Encrypted and anonymous email services are much more like regular email. However, the content of the messages is scrambled with encryption algorithms. That makes it almost impossible for any third party—not even your government, ISP, or email provider—to read your messages. Only the receiver of the email can read the message.

Different providers offer different features. However, the most common and best anonymous email accounts include:

ProtonMail – Arguably the best secure email provider that offers end-to-end encryption emails.

Tutanota – It’s the most anonymous email service provider that provides end-to-end encryption and two-factor authentication.

Guerrilla Mail – Are you looking for a way to send an anonymous email without signing up for a service? Look no further, Guerrilla Mail is all you need. It’s a free email client that assigns users automatically with a random email address kept for an hour before being deleted.

StarMail - It is one of the easiest-to-use email services. It focuses on data privacy and emphasizes ownership that resists any unwarranted intrusion. The service allows you to create and delete an unlimited number of email addresses.

Anonymousemail – you can send emails from the Anonymousemail website. With a premium tier, you can easily edit your name and email, send an attachment, and even track the open rate of your email in real-time.

Use a “Burner” Email

A burner email account is similar to a cheap prepaid phone that you can use and dispose of quickly. In this email type, you’re not allowed to register any personal information, and your account expires after a given time.

Therefore, you have a small window to receive and send emails with very little information that could be used to track back to you.

Moreover, a burner account can help you fight spam when registering on shady sites. However, resetting that account is almost impossible if you forget your burner email password. Therefore, you should only use a burner email when you’re nearly sure that you won’t need that account in the future.

Hide Your IP Address

Your IP address could still be a liability if you send your anonymous email using any method. Therefore, you need to make sure that you hide your actual IP address. Perhaps the recipient of your email can see your IP address, which can reveal the general location of the sender – which can narrow down your identity. In fact, it can even reveal your ISP.

The best way to hide your IP address is to use a secure VPN service that masks your real IP address and then assigns you a different IP address shared by several users—hence anonymizing you. Moreover, you can use Tor to hide your IP address.

Remove Metadata from Images and Files

Another way to send an anonymous email is to ensure that you remove the metadata, alt text, or keywords from the attached images and files.

Before you send out anything, whether with an encrypted email service provider or a mainstream provider, make sure that you delete metadata from any image or file before you attach it to your email.

Ideally, metadata can contain a lot of information that can be used to identify you. For instance, there could be some metadata on the image, such as the camera used, editing software used, or even the device's owner and GPS locations.

Encrypt Messages

Most email clients, such as Outlook and Gmail, have feature options that let you send encrypted emails. However, to ensure that the emails won’t be traced back to the sender, you need to create a new account without real names and then enable encryption settings to start sending anonymous emails.

Bottom Line

One thing is for sure, if you do everything right, an anonymous email that hides your metadata, IP address, and other information won't be traced back to you. However, it’s important to determine the importance of the information you want to hide before you decide to use an anonymous email and the method to use it.

Besides, you don’t have to be in a special situation to learn how an anonymous email works. In the current online space where privacy and security are paramount, you might want to alter your email behavior.