Looking for a Free Disposable Email Service? Try 10MinuteMail

By Zubair Alexander

- On March 21, 2019

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Everyone hates spam, except the spammers. Well, I am sure they don't like receiving spam, they just love to spam others. If you are tired of companies and Web sites that force you to give your email address to download a tool or read an article that you really like, but you don't want to use your real email to avoid getting spammed by them, try 10MinuteMail.com. This service started sometime around 2006 or 2007 and lets you use a throw-away valid email that expires in 10 minutes. The email account will be yours for at least 10 minutes, but you can extend the time in 10-minute increments if you want. I will explain this a little but later. This email service offers email accounts that are anonymous, temporary accounts and are ideal to use for Web sites that require email validation. Spam can be a nuisance, but it can also contain malware which can cause serious risk to your privacy and security. Using a disposable email service, such as 10MinuteMail, can be helpful in minimizing those risks. Of course, you are not going to use a disposable email on a Web site that's not in the business of spamming people so use it only where it's appropriate.

How Does the Service Work?

Here's how the 10MinuteMail disposable email service works. Simply visit the Web site at https://www.10MinuteMail.com/ and start using their service.

Yes, there is no need for you to create an account to use this service. How's that for a free service that doesn't force you to give your name, email, street or mailing address, credit card information, and more? You will land on a simple page that displays your temporary email account, which ends with @nwytg.com. The 10-minute countdown time shows you how much time is left before the email will expire. Once the email account expires, your emails are deleted and the account stops working. No one has access to your Inbox, which means no one can read your email other than you. In that sense the email is secure, however the email's content is not encrypted. As for as email management, you shouldn't really expect much with any disposable email service. There are a couple of icons next to the timer that you can use in 10MinuteMail. I believe the first round circle is supposed to let you copy the email address, but it didn't work for me in any of the 5 different browsers that I use. To copy the email address, simply double-click the email address to highlight it and then copy it. The second circle with the two arrows will let you refresh the counter for another 10-minutes. This can come handy if you are expecting an email and haven't received it and the counter is about to expire. When you receive the email it will show up in the Inbox. The green bar will indicate how many messages you have.

When you open a message by clicking it, you will have the amount of time indicated on the counter to read it. You can extend the time for additional 10 minutes if you need extra time. Once you have read the email, you have the option to either reply to the message or forward it. It looks like to me that the time shown inside the email is Central US time, and it's not quite accurate, but I wouldn't worry about the time accuracy in a temporary email that's about to expire in less than 10 minutes.

Replying and Forwarding are pretty much the only thing you would want to do with a disposable email. It may be necessary to respond to the message you received so you can reply to it and if you want to save the message or print it then simply forward it to your real email account. Remember your emails in the Inbox will be deleted after 10 minutes and there is no way for you, or the service provider, to recover your email.

Things to Avoid

Do not use 10MinuteMail service for Web sites that you normally use, such as bank, school, online merchants, or legitimate businesses that don't spam people (Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, SeattlePro, etc.). Only use this service when you don't really want the Web site to ever contact you, except for contacting you once to validate your email. Obviously, if you want to reset your password at a site, this email account won't be a good idea.
Do not use this service for any illegal service. Just because the account is disposable doesn't mean that your email can't be traced. If you send someone an inappropriate message using this service and they report to the law enforcement authorities, an Ethical Hacker or a Digital Forensic Investigator working with the law enforcement can potentially find out from which computer the message originated and where exactly that computer is located (country, city, street, building), who used the computer at the time the email was sent, and much more.
Never use a disposable email account for a government, military, law enforcement, or a financial institute Web site. These are not places where you should be hiding your identity and you may get into legal trouble if you do.
Just like most email systems, 10MinuteMail.com does not encrypt the emails so don't send anything confidential using this service. By default, emails are sent across the Internet unencrypted and anyone in the middle can potentially capture your email and read the content. This also means that your Internet Service Provider (ISP) also has access to your data that travels through their network unencrypted. Because in 2017 the U.S. government reversed the Internet privacy protection law that was put in place in 2016 to protect people's privacy, ISPs can now capture your data, save it, and legally sell your personal information on the Dark Web, or any place else for that matter, without facing any consequences. What all this boils down to is this. Email messages are by default unencrypted so don't send sensitive content in an email, unless you encrypt the message.

Thanks for reading my article. If you are interested in IT training & consulting services, please reach out to me. Visit ZubairAlexander.com for information on my professional background.