Apple’s iOS 15 has seen the iPhone maker launch a bunch of brilliant privacy features, one of the best of which is Hide My Email. So, first things first—what is Hide My Email?
The feature in Apple’s iCloud allows you to create fake email addresses for the websites you sign up to.
There are multiple benefits to this. By using My Email on your iPhone and other Apple devices, you can keep control over your marketing emails, as well as avoid your details being added to multiple databases.
You will still receive the emails, which will be forwarded by Apple to your actual email address, but you can remove the accounts at any time also removing any spammy emails from your inbox. Cool, huh?
Alongside App Tracking Transparency, Hide My Email is one of my favorite Apple privacy features, and not just because of the obvious benefits. It can also help you to get online discounts on the same site multiple times—more on this later.
Here’s how to use the iOS 15 iPhone privacy feature, plus a couple of tips and tricks to help you get the most out of it.
Getting started with Hide My Email
Apple’s Hide My Email is really simple to use. When you are signing up for something using your iPhone, Mac, or iPad, click on the email address box and the option to hide your email should come up. Apple will then create an email address and password for you, which you can save to the iCloud Keychain. Simple.
Using My Email to send and reply in Apple Mail
Apple introduced a feature in iOS 15.2 that allows you to send emails to people using My Email directly from the Mail app. You can use it by opening your Apple Mail app, writing the email, and then tapping on the From field, and the option to My Email will appear there.
Managing Hide My Email
The ability to manage and control My Email is one of its major selling points.
You can manage your My Email Addresses including which email the messages are sent to in your iPhone Settings > iCloud > Hide My Email.
Deleting Addresses from Hide My Email
Similarly, to delete any Hide My Email credentials, simply log into your iCloud, where you can manage and delete any My Email addresses you no longer want or need.
Using Hide My Email for online discounts
For keen online shoppers like myself, this My Email trick may prove to be the most useful. Many websites offer discounts to those who sign up for emails, or as a one-time thing to celebrate major holidays.
Once you know how to manage and delete email addresses, you can move on to using My Email on the same site to get online discounts multiple times.
Simply go to the site, use My Email and buy the items. If you want to buy something at a later date and the discount no longer applies to you, you can delete the Hide My Email address in your Apple iCloud account. Then go back to the site and voila, you can use Hide My Email again.
Apple’s Hide My Email is worth using
Online discounts aside, My Email is a brilliant iPhone feature that’s worth using. Apple fans will already know the iPhone maker uses privacy as a USP, and My Email is a great example of that ethos in action.
