FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions

Mail4Free.net is a free disposable email service. You get an instant temporary address you can use to receive emails without registering and without giving out your real address.

No. Without an account you get a random or custom address that automatically expires after a while. A free account is only worth it if you want to keep an address permanently, manage several aliases, or set up notifications/forwarding.

A new temporary address is valid for 1 hour. Every time you open the page, a new email arrives or you click an email, the lifetime restarts at 1 hour - so an actively used address stays alive, while a forgotten one disappears on its own. Once it expires, the address and its emails are deleted and (without an account) a new address is assigned to you automatically. Addresses in the Alias Vault (account required) never expire.

Click "New address" on the home page - you instantly get a new random address. If several domains are available, you can pick the domain first. If you prefer your own address, use the "Custom name instead of random" field.

Yes. Instead of a random address, you can enter your own name on the homepage ("custom name"). If it's still available, it's assigned to your address immediately.

Lowercase letters (a-z), digits (0-9), dot and hyphen are allowed, 3 to 32 characters long. Names that are already taken, as well as names blocked for security and abuse reasons (e.g. "admin", "info", "support", "postmaster"), cannot be used.

Temporary addresses expire automatically. Registered users can additionally save addresses permanently in the so-called Alias Vault - they stay until you delete them yourself, and can be tagged with a label to organize several addresses.

Registered users can manage up to 10 permanent aliases at the same time.

Yes. For each permanent alias in your dashboard you can set a forwarding address and a duration (e.g. 7 or 30 days, or unlimited). Forwarding automatically stops again once the chosen duration expires.

If you enter a Telegram chat ID or a Discord webhook URL for one of your permanent aliases in the dashboard, Mail4Free.net sends you a short notification with the sender and subject every time a new mail arrives - never the full content of the mail.

New emails usually appear in your inbox automatically within a few seconds - you do not need to reload the page. "Refresh inbox" lets you check manually at any time. How quickly a message actually arrives also depends on the sender: some services send confirmation emails with a delay.

Yes, attachments are shown and can be downloaded. A single attachment may be up to 15 MB; up to 200 emails are kept per address. Open attachments from unknown senders with caution - they may contain malware.

Every incoming email automatically receives a risk rating (spam score) that you see right in the message view - no account needed. It is calculated locally on our server using simple patterns; no content is sent to external checking services. The score is only a hint, not a guarantee.

No. Mail4Free.net is deliberately a receive-only service - this keeps it from being abused for spam sending and keeps it usable for everyone.

Yes. Clicking "QR code" shows a QR code right below your address. It is generated in your browser - handy for quickly transferring the address to another device or pasting it into a form. No external service is contacted and no data is transmitted.

Yes. In the message view, "Save as PDF" creates a PDF of the message with one click. The PDF is generated directly in your browser - the email is not sent anywhere for this.

For permanent aliases in the Alias Vault, you can turn on "burn after reading" per alias in the dashboard. When it's on, each incoming mail is permanently deleted the moment you open it for the first time - ideal for especially sensitive one-time content like confirmation codes.

Yes. For permanent aliases you can generate a read-only link in the dashboard, with a set duration (e.g. 7 or 30 days, or unlimited). Anyone with that link can view the inbox, with no account of their own and no access to your password. You can revoke the link early at any time.

Yes. For permanent aliases, the dashboard has an export button that bundles every stored email into a ZIP file of individual .eml files - a standard format importable into virtually any email client.

Yes. Incoming emails for temporary addresses are held only transiently in working memory (RAM) by the application and are not written to the database or to disk. They disappear automatically and irrevocably when the address expires. Only emails of permanent aliases of registered users are stored in the database so that they remain available.

Temporary addresses, including all received mails, are automatically and irreversibly deleted once they expire. We don't track you for advertising purposes. See the privacy policy for details.

Only one technically necessary session cookie is used (e.g. for your current address, the language and form protection). There are no tracking, marketing or analytics cookies and no audience measurement. Fonts and scripts are served from our own server.

Yes. External images (often used as tracking pixels) are blocked by default when you open an email. You can still load them with one click if you want to.

Some websites and services block known disposable-email domains. This is not caused by Mail4Free.net but by the provider's own settings. In that case, try another of the offered domains (if several are available) or use a different address.

Do not use the service for important accounts or contracts where you later depend on notifications, password resets or proof (e.g. bank, authorities, insurance, payment services, cloud storage). Temporary addresses expire and can afterwards be used by others. For accounts you want to keep, the Alias Vault is the better choice. In addition, any unlawful or abusive use is prohibited - see the Terms of Use; addresses or accounts may be blocked for violations.

German, English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Chinese (Mandarin). Switch the language using the flags in the header.

Yes, all features are free to use. Operations are funded through voluntary donations and, where present, the occasional subtle, non-tracking sponsor ad - never by selling your data. Whether and how that's shown is entirely up to the operator running this particular Mail4Free.net instance.

Your own valid email address and a password of at least 10 characters. The account is free. You can change your password in the dashboard at any time.

Yes, any time, no questions asked. In your dashboard, under the "Danger zone" section at the bottom, you'll find the option to permanently delete your account - you'll need to re-enter your password to confirm. This permanently deletes your account, every permanent alias in your Alias Vault, and all emails stored in them. This cannot be undone afterwards.

A temporary or randomly generated address is not password-protected: anyone who knows or guesses the address can open that inbox and read the emails in it. So please don't send or receive sensitive data (passwords, access codes, personal documents, or confidential information) through such an address. Once you, as a registered user, save an address permanently in your Alias Vault, access to it is tied to your account (email + password) and is therefore much better protected.

An address (random or custom) can in principle be assigned again once it becomes free - i.e. after a temporary address has automatically expired and been cleaned up, or after a permanent alias has been deleted from the Alias Vault. In both cases, however, all emails belonging to that address are permanently and irreversibly deleted before the name becomes available again. If the same address is created again later, it starts as a completely empty, new inbox with no connection to the previous messages - so old emails can't be recovered this way, even if the name and timing would otherwise match exactly.