Best Email Forwarding Services in 2026: 9 Services Compared

SimpleLogin is our pick for most people because it covers every use case well. The free plan includes 10 aliases, unlimited bandwidth, replies from aliases, and one mailbox. Premium costs $4 per month or $36 per year and adds unlimited aliases, unlimited custom domains, catch-all domains, unlimited mailboxes, PGP encryption, and the ability to start new emails from an alias. It is open source, can be self-hosted, and is based in Switzerland under Proton.

The free tier's 10-alias limit fills up fast if you alias every service, and the reverse-alias system for sending takes a minute to learn. Those are modest complaints against a service that also bundles Proton Pass premium. If you want one alias service to grow with you from casual use to a custom domain, start here.

addy.io, formerly AnonAddy, offers the most generous free tier in this list. You get unlimited standard aliases based on your username subdomain, such as [email protected], plus reply support on paid plans. Paid plans start at $1 per month for Lite and $3 per month for Pro, adding custom domains, more bandwidth, and PGP encryption. The code is open source and can be self-hosted.

The free tier's limits are real: 10 MB of monthly bandwidth and a single recipient mailbox, plus limits on shared-domain aliases. The web interface also feels more utilitarian than SimpleLogin's. If you want unlimited aliases without paying and you are comfortable with a plainer interface, addy.io is the best free-first option.

Firefox Relay is the easiest alias service for Firefox users. The browser integration lets you generate a new alias in a signup form with one click, and Premium costs $0.99 per month with annual billing for unlimited aliases, replying from aliases, and a custom subdomain. Mozilla's tracker removal strips many email trackers from forwarded messages, which is a genuine privacy gain.

The free tier is small, with a limited number of masks, and you cannot bring a full custom domain the way SimpleLogin and addy.io allow. A higher-priced tier adds phone number masking. If you live in Firefox and want aliases with almost no setup, Relay is the natural choice.

DuckDuckGo Email Protection is the best fully free option. You get unlimited @duck.com aliases, automatic tracker removal, and forwarding to any mailbox, with no subscription at all. Setup takes a few minutes through the DuckDuckGo browser or extension, and aliases can be created on the fly for each new signup.

The limits are that there is no custom domain support and no paid tier, so power users who want their own domain will outgrow it. Replying to a forwarded message also routes through a special address format rather than a simple reply button. For readers who want solid privacy protection at zero cost, this is the easiest recommendation in the list.

Apple Hide My Email is the zero-effort option for Apple households. When you sign up in Safari or an app, or compose in Apple Mail, Apple can generate a random alias that forwards to your iCloud mailbox, and you can manage or deactivate aliases in Settings. It is included with iCloud+, which starts at $0.99 per month and also adds storage and Private Relay.

The lock-in is total: aliases are tied to Apple services, you cannot choose custom usernames, and there is no Android or Windows equivalent. If your household runs on Apple devices and you want aliases without installing anything new, Hide My Email is excellent. If you mix platforms, choose a cross-platform service instead.

Proton Pass bundles alias creation with Proton's password manager. The free tier includes 10 aliases, and the paid plan from $1.99 per month adds unlimited aliases, custom domains, and the full Pass feature set, with SimpleLogin's alias engine under the hood. If you already use Proton Mail, aliases integrate cleanly with your mailbox and vault.

The catch is that Proton Pass is at its best inside Proton's own apps. Sending from an alias outside Proton Mail is less smooth than with SimpleLogin's reverse-alias system, and custom domains need the paid plan. For readers already in the Proton ecosystem, it is the obvious choice. For everyone else, standalone SimpleLogin is more flexible.

Forward Email is a forwarding-only service built for people who own a domain. You point your domain's mail records at Forward Email, and any address at your domain, such as [email protected], forwards to your real inbox. The free tier covers basic forwarding, and paid plans add more domains, recipients, and features. Because it is open source, privacy-minded users can inspect how it works.

The trade-off is that Forward Email is not a mailbox: you still need an inbox elsewhere, and setup requires editing DNS records, which is a step beyond signing up for an alias app. If you own a domain and want clean, simple forwarding without a subscription for every alias, it is a strong pick. If you do not own a domain, start with SimpleLogin or DuckDuckGo instead.

ImprovMX is the simplest way to get forwarding for a domain you own. The free tier covers one domain with unlimited aliases, and setup takes a few minutes of DNS changes. Mail sent to [email protected] lands in your chosen mailbox, and you can add more domains and higher limits on paid plans.

ImprovMX has no browser extension or mobile app, so alias creation is a matter of inventing addresses on the fly rather than clicking a button. Free-tier volume limits also mean heavy users should upgrade. For a small business or personal domain where you want every address to work without managing a list, ImprovMX is a clean, low-cost answer.

Pobox is the veteran of this list, offering email forwarding since the early days of the web. Its plans include spam filtering, forwarding to multiple mailboxes, custom domain support, and catch-all addresses, with a reputation for reliability over decades. Support is US-based and responsive, which matters when your email address is on a business card.

Pobox has no free tier, and its interface and feature set feel older than the newer alias services. It lacks one-click browser alias generation and modern extras such as tracker removal. If you want a forwarding address you can keep for decades with human support behind it, Pobox is a safe, if unglamorous, choice.