- Google is working on a new Shielded Email feature, similar to Apple’s Hide My Email
- The new tool hides your main email address from service providers when creating accounts
- There’s no release date yet, but testers have been able to activate the feature pre-release
If you’re anything like me, your Gmail inbox has slowly filled with promotions, pointless updates, and newsletters from accounts you probably never use, simply because you use the same email address for logging in as you do for actually writing and receiving emails.
Luckily, Google appears to be taking steps to remedy this annoying issue by taking some inspiration from its long-time competitor, Apple.
The new Shielded Email feature for Android phones creates an alias when signing up for new accounts, immediately issuing a new single-use or limited-use email address to use in the sign-up process.
The feature was successfully enabled pre-release by Android Authority which reports that the new tool exists as part of Google’s autofill features, alongside the same pop-ups that appear at the top of your keyboard to automatically type out phone numbers, credit card information, and addresses.
Emails sent to an alias address are automatically forwarded to your main email address, which you can turn off at any point. Using an alias address creates a buffer between you and the service provider, which means fewer people have their hands on your main email.
That buffer also means bad actors can be easily removed from your inbox without having to jump through hoops: you don’t even have to block or unsubscribe from these emails to get them to stop showing up. It’ll also make your online presence harder to track, as your identity will be largely hidden from data collectors who seek to build an image of your activity across various sites and platforms – easily done if you’re using the same email address in multiple places.
As mentioned, Shielded Email is effectively the same tool as Apple’s Hide My Email, and seeks to offer a very similar result – though given how much inspiration the best iPhones have taken from the best Android phones over the years, I’m sure we can let Google off this time. There’s no release date yet, though.
What do you think of this new feature? Would you use Shielded email, or do you not care so much about your digital footprint? Let us know in the comments.