Feature Request: Burner Email Support
Hey 1Password Team!
One of my biggest annoyances about websites is something that I would love to see 1Password tackle.
I often find myself having to sign up for a new account on websites that I would rather not have my email address, but require one for an account. Though some websites and apps are now supporting Sign in with Apple, many others do not.
My workaround has been to create a "Spam" or "Burner" address depending on the situation (something like spamspamspam@emailaddress.com), and this works to an extent, but it isn't a great fix. There are extensions and apps that allow for temporary emails, but again, these don't quite do what I want.
What I'd really like to see from 1Password is the ability to generate and forward emails much like Sign in With Apple does, but on websites that don't support that.
How this would work:
- Create a new account at a website
- When the website requests an email address, 1Password can pop up and offer to generate a "fake" email. It then saves this email address and allows the user to manage it inside the 1Password entry for the website (along with the generated password).
- Any emails that come to this address are then forwarded to the email address that 1Password has.
- If at any time a user wants to stop getting emails through this specific account, you can go into 1Password and remove the account and all future emails stop.
This is a plus for security, and a plus for convenience for 1Password users. And for what it is worth... I would pay a couple bucks a month for this feature as an add on 🤷♂️
Would love to see this in future versions, thank you 1Password!
1Password Version: Not Provided
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: macOS 11.2
Sync Type: Not Provided
Comments
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Hey @SpaceSwift ,
That's an interesting idea.I'm not sure how realistic it is to implement it, since every email address requires a domain and an email server running for it, but the base idea is interesting.
Most of us have a "spam" email that we use to sign up to places we don't really need/want, and it is not a bad solution. We don't use that email for anything other than spam. Care to elaborate why you think this is not a good workaround/solution to your situation?0 -
Hey @ag_yaron,
I completely hear you that this may not be a realistic item for 1Password to take on, though, as I mentioned, it's something that is right up the alley with what 1Password does as well as with integrations like Privacy.
As an example let's look at https://temp-mail.org/en/ or https://www.mailinator.com -- Both of these services have major drawbacks (the first is a single use 10-minute only email, the second has a public inbox).
The benefits of the single use emails is that they can be burned/destroyed. So for example, if I sign up for a website with a repeated use email and then they decide to share that email address with a third party, then I will be receiving spam at that email address forever that I now need to weed through to see what is important and what is not. Now yes, that was to an extent the job of that email address, but it makes managing the emails that I do in fact care about much more difficult.
If instead website X gets a specific email address, then if they share that email address with a third party, all I have to do is to burn the email address and then I won't ever get another email from them or from anyone that they shared it with.
Plus, if it forwards to my actual email address, I don't have to check a secondary account and I won't miss things that I might care about. For example, let's say I want to sign up for coupons from a company -- I don't want to give them my email address, but I do want that monthly coupon they send me, this allows me to maintain the anonymity and know that my actual email address is not shared, while still getting the emails that I care about from them. If I ever decide I don't care anymore, I don't have to worry about whether their Unsubscribe function actually listens to my request (as let's be honest, many of them seem not to, or require multiple steps to unsubscribe...) I can instead burn the email address, and never hear from them again.
Lastly, I would just add that there is a tracking aspect to this as well - if you use a single email repeatedly, then it does make it possible for third parties to match advertising data to that identifier if a website decides to share that information with third parties. A single use email would make that data useless.
Hope this helps give clarity, and would love to see it in use one day at 1Password!
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Thanks for elaborating @SpaceSwift .
I do see how this would help you out, but I gotta say it is a pretty niche request. That's not a service we'll be able to implement on our own so a 3rd party integration would be in order (much like the privacy.com integration we have), but it will require some more users requests. We'll keep an eye on this and see if perhaps this type of use case is more common. If it is, we'll definitely consider it!
Thank you for bringing this up, it is quite an interesting idea :)
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I completely understand. Hopefully if anyone else sees this thread and likes the idea, they can drop a +1 on it! 😊
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Indeed :+1:
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Just registered so I could second this request.
Apple is doing this for all their customers with "Sign in with Apple" since 2019. The idea of forwarding email addresses to protect your privacy is now mainstream. I loved the spirit of the 1Password and Privacy.com integration and I agree @ag_yaron that email forwarding could be accomplished in the same way.
HEY is an email host that seems like a perfect fit to integrate into 1Password. Users would authenticate their HEY account with 1Password and then during signup 1Password would offer to generate a forwarding email address unique to that login. HEY would be responsible for handling the forwarding.
Dave Teare (heart and soul of 1Password) is friendly with DHH who is one of the cofounders of HEY. If this is even close to possible Dave and DHH would be the duo to make this partnership happen. Both products, 1Password and HEY, make privacy part of their mission. Both companies AND their customers stand to benefit here.
@ag_yaron and @ag_ana would you be able to get this thread bumped up to Dave?
Thanks for hearing me out.
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Hey @kwilliamm ,
We sure can! Thanks for bringing this up :)0 -
There are a couple of services that do this. Two I’ve heard of are ananaddy.com and https://simplelogin.io/. The idea of using separate email addresses, exactly as we use individual passwords for each account is described here.
https://youtu.be/RsrpL3lx9JEThe idea does seem to parallel privacy.com’s method for creating credit card “aliases.” I think both Anonaddy and Simplelogin are small companies right now, but I hope they grow.
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Thank you for the suggestions @zensummer :+1:
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Looks like Apple decided to beat you to it with iCloud+ "Hide My Email". Would still love to see this integrated directly into 1Password none the less so it could work on all platforms and automatically save to 1Password.
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@SpaceSwift – I thought the same as I was watching WWDC today! Thanks for letting us know it's something you'd love to see as well. :)
ref: dev/projects/customer-feature-requests#120
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I'm interested in this too! Sounds like Apple's feature may only work with iCloud email, so it would be great if 1password could work across all email accounts and browsers/devices.
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+1 I'd love to be able to create email aliases directly within 1P. SimpleLogin, AnonAddy are services that 1P could be integrated with. I saw the integration with FastMail but I'd like to use my own email provider so the integration with an alias provider would be the best. Thanks and keep up the great work!
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Hi all,
I'm just pasting my comment on another thread here, as I think it would fit here.I'm very excited to see the new collaboration with FastMail, and I've signed up for the free trial. However I do agree with @ericgui . It would be a very nice addition to have multiple options to choose from.
I think SimpleLogin offers a really nice service, similar to FastMail. It's open-source, offers a free plan and the premium plan is about the same price as FastMail. I think SimpleLogin would make an excellent addition to the current arsenal of 1Password collaborations because it's open-source, has PGP and offers features like custom alias, reverse alias, one-click unsubscribe, quarantine, email forwarding to your own address and (in my opinion) much better control of individual aliases. It's also based in France which, as @ericgui mentioned is more respectful of privacy than the USA for example.
I really hope 1Password would consider teaming up with SimpleLogin, as I'm sure something really useful will come out of it.
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I fully agree, FastMail is a great start, but I think a completely free option is essential to make this usable for most users. Especially when competing with Apple's own free alternative.
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Hi @MoosMas and @SpaceSwift:
As Ben mentioned, we're always keeping an eye out for opportunities to partner with other brands that can be mutually beneficial for our customers and theirs.
Jack
ref: dev/core/core#10417
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