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Comment by CharlesW | Hacker News Reader

I'll throw my hat in the ring for iCloud+, which I migrated to from Google Workspace (using imapsync) and may be a good choice if you use iCloud anyway. Apple's been hosting email for a few decades now, and they've been a reliable, no-muss/no-fuss email host for me.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212514

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One of my favourite features with iCloud mail is generating new email addresses for each service, in a very integrated straight forward manner

Before iCould I used to to this manually with my own mail

In the first iteration I had a catch all address, so I could invent any new email address and it would arrive to me. This was plagued by spam because any conceivable user @ my domain would be delivered to me.

In the second iteration I manually created aliases in the config file for my mail server when signing up for new things. This was additional overhead and annoying.

iCloud thanks to the integration into Safari and apps is so smooth with this. I just click the “hide my email” button and it generates a new unique email for the place I am filling in an email address.

I love it!

This isn’t a feature of iCloud mail - Apple will do this no matter who your provider is. They create an address and then just forward emails for it to your real address.

Fastmail + 1password also has this feature.

The Apple version is very nicely integrated into iOS.

Not sure what you mean by this? The 1password version is integrated using the exact same hooks/methodology as Apple's; except it isn't Apple's.

Unfortunately when it comes to the masked email feature in iCloud+, there are finite number of emails they let you generate for that, which means you’ll end up sharing between services. It’s something like 150, and I can personally say I have about 500 or so right now in fast mail for different logins, and I haven’t even fully migrated yet.

> when it comes to the masked email feature in iCloud+, there are finite number of emails they let you generate for that, (…) It’s something like 150

Do you have a source? I did find reports saying that it was limited to 100 during the beta but that the limit has since been lifted. People are claiming almost 350 addresses with no cap.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253893742

https://www.reddit.com/r/iOSBeta/comments/pbfg1t/hide_my_ema...

https://www.macrumors.com/guide/ios-15-privacy/

It’s been at least a year or so since I read that, so it’s very possible that it’s changed.

As is typical Apple fashion, it’s not documented anywhere that’s easy to find.

> As is typical Apple fashion, it’s not documented anywhere that’s easy to find.

I agree Apple’s documentation is terrible, but if there is no limit (any more) then there would little reason to document that.

Indeed, if there's no limit, you probably want to not document it, lest you tempt someone with too much time on their hands to test if unlimited really means unlimited.

> for a few decades now, and they've been a reliable

It seems that Apple has gotten better at online services, but MobileMe was not that long ago.

iCloud filter rules is so weak...

On iCloud.com, yeah, but on Mac you can use rules to run arbitrary code on your emails, which is pretty sweet.

Hmm. I rely mores on server-side filter rules because I don't use native Mail client.

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