A free email account that I can close after 2-3 months?

I have come to dislike using emails because the accounts become clogged with spam. I currently have two accounts with mainstream providers, one I have had for years but have not looked at in months because of the spam problem, another I keep for long-term things. I would prefer to use physical post as the cost of using it filters out most of the spam/junk mail, but that is a minority view.

So it has occurred to me that I could use an email address for two or three months and then close it and move on to another address, preferably with emails to the closed account being returned to the sender as undelivered.

Can anyone recommend a suitable free email account where I can do the above? I am based in the UK.

It would be nice to find a provider who made it easy to close down and open up email addresses. The old account would ideally be closed, all emails deleted, and especially that undelivered emails returned.

Thanks.

You might check with your current providers to see if they have aliases available. I have a paid email provider that allows me to use aliases + a limited number of domain names as part of the alias. I can create those and use them, all mail gets delivered to my main box and if spam starts, I delete the alias.

Just a thought.

Originally Posted by grumpyskeptic So it has occurred to me that I could use an email address for two or three months and then close it and move on to another address, preferably with emails to the closed account being returned to the sender as undelivered.

The doesn't actually solve the problem, it just puts you on an endless conveyor belt of closing and opening email accounts.

It would be far better to open two accounts. One which you give out to companies and another which you give to friends and family. And just keep it that way.

Originally Posted by Lysander666 ... It would be far better to open two accounts. One which you give out to companies and another which you give to friends and family. And just keep it that way.

I remember someone else saying that years ago; they'd have an email account they didn't care about, and as you say, give it out to particularly competitions that required an email address. Therefore he'd just have that email especially for somewhere for them to send spam to, rather than his personal email he did care about.

I remember not long ago being in Westfield shopping centre and trying to use their "free" wifi, the only thing was that you had to enter in your email address for them to send you promotions, so I used the public library's wifi instead - screw Westfield's "free" wifi.

Google search for 10 minute email yields several alternatives with lifetimes from minutes to months.

Originally Posted by Lysander666 The doesn't actually solve the problem, it just puts you on an endless conveyor best of closing and opening email accounts. It would be far better to open two accounts. One which you give out to companies and another which you give to friends and family. And just keep it that way.

I agree with this. I actually have an old gmail account I still know the password to for signing up to things I have no intention of reading email from.
Mind you, I also pay for email hosting and use seperate users at my domain to work out which, if any, companies I want deal with have given out my email address to others I don't (not caught any yet as this is relatively recent in this incarnation).

"Mainstream providers" should have extensive spam filtering and reporting functionality. I get almost no spam in my Cox accounts, nor at AOL, although I don't use AOL much. Even gmail has pretty good reporting and blocking, in my experience, although they are often the source of spam -- maybe two or three a day on my server.

My "main" addresses are on my own server where I use aliases extensively...probably to an extent that a subscriber couldn't do on Cox or some other ISP. Makes it pretty obvious when I get a phishing email purporting to be from American Express that's sent to an email address American Express doesn't have (usually support@ -- I have no filters on that address). Such email gets reported to the delivering ISP and to AMEX. It also helps me identify when someone I've given an address to sells it; I start getting spam.

I like the idea of aliases, such as those offered by Yahoo. Although I dislike the alias emails all being shown in one single mailbox with other emails.

I already have a Yahoo account with a busy email address. I would like to start again with a nw empty mailbox using only aliases and never the true email address.

Do Yahoo allow separate email addresses with separate mailboxes?

You can have as many Yahoo email addresses as you can be bothered with. However, I think the point being made by myself and others here is that you ought to have one email address only used by trusted friends and family then decide how to deal with the rest. My way of dealing with the rest was, after changing email addresses entirely, to have one email address at my domain which only my friends use and one which receives email from <anyname>@mydomain.com so that I can use a different email address for every website I sign up to and they will go, for the moment, into one mailbox. However, should a website sell my email address I will see email sent to that address from another source so I can stop using the company which sold my email address. Also, should I determine one sender more important I can set up a new mailbox just for the address I gave them.
Email is very flexible.

Originally Posted by grumpyskeptic I like the idea of aliases, such as those offered by Yahoo. Although I dislike the alias emails all being shown in one single mailbox with other emails. I already have a Yahoo account with a busy email address. I would like to start again with a nw empty mailbox using only aliases and never the true email address. Do Yahoo allow separate email addresses with separate mailboxes?

I don't see why not, 'tho that would be separate accounts, I'd think. Kind of the definition of alias is several addresses to one mailbox. (Tho of course they can be used other ways...I've set up aliases that deliver mail to two mailboxes, for example)

Keep an eye on the AOL/Yahoo!/Verizon merger that's happening as we speak.

"Mainstream providers" should have extensive spam filtering and reporting functionality. I get almost no spam in my Cox accounts,

I second that about main stream providers. I did have an uptick in spam on my Cox account late last year. I started logging into my web mail every couple or three days and marking the spam as "spam" using the Cox web mail tools, and the problem went away after about two or three weeks.

One still sneaks through occasionally, so I repeat the above.

The lesson I take from this is that we can help our mail providers improve their mail filters.

Hi,

ever heard of the sieve-plugin for dovecot?
You can filter your emails based on the subject (sender etc. etc.) and put them in different directories in your email.
This way it gets easy to delete all emails that meat certain criteria.

In combination with a spamfilter this helps to keep your email-address usable for a long time.
If I find a way to get into contact I might be able to help out, without cost.
I run 2 Mail server specifically for my customers that need a clean email.

On this forum I cannot find a way to send a PM.

Regards,
Jan

Originally Posted by Janvanl Hi, ever heard of the sieve-plugin for dovecot? You can filter your emails based on the subject (sender etc. etc.) and put them in different directories in your email. This way it gets easy to delete all emails that meat certain criteria. In combination with a spamfilter this helps to keep your email-address usable for a long time. If you send me a mail through the form on [spam? link removed] then I may be able to help you I run 2 Mail server specifically for my customers that need a clean email. On this forum I cannot find a way to send a PM. Regards, Jan

One can do the same thing in Thunderbird or most any email client...it need not be an MTA-level tweak.
Pointing that out because the OP appears not to be running an MTA, else they wouldn't have asked this question.

You can't do PMs because you don't have enough posts.

I'll leave it to the mods to decide if this post constitutes advertising. I've removed the spam-looking link from my quote

Hi Scasey

I just want to help GrumpySkeptic, therefore I need to have a way to contact him.
How many post does one need to have before a PM is possible?

BTW the link was no spam, I just took one of the few Websites I have in english, the majority
is in german and a few in dutch. I took it away, please tell me how to reach out to GrumpySkeptic.

Regards,
Jan

Originally Posted by Janvanl Hi Scasey I just want to help GrumpySkeptic, therefore I need to have a way to contact him. How many post does one need to have before a PM is possible? BTW the link is no spam, I just took one of the few Websites I have in english, the majority is in german and a few in dutch. Delete it now if you considered it advertising but please tell me how to reach out to GrumpySkeptic. Regards, Jan

You're doing it. Posting is how we communicate with each other.

If they've allowed it, you may be able to send them an email via a link on their profile page, but that's generally frowned upon here. LQ is about sharing information so everyone can see it. If you've allowed it, and they want to, they can choose to send you an email the same way.

Again, the OP is asking about email services. They don't appear to be running an MTA, so advice about configuring postfix is probably not going to help them.

I'm not sure about the advertising issue. As I said, that's up to the moderators. I provide email services, too, but it is my understanding that it's not appropriate to solicit business as a "way to help" someone here. I'm sure a moderator will correct me if I'm wrong.

AFAIK, one has to have 150 posts to enable private messaging.