What a mail service should tell you it stores
8 July 2026 · 4 min read
Every privacy policy says data is kept "only as long as necessary". That sentence is compatible with keeping everything forever.
What is worth asking
- Exactly how long, in hours or days, for each kind of data.
- Whether deletion is enforced by something that fails loudly if it stops.
- What is kept after deletion: metadata, logs, backups.
- Whether staff can read message contents, and under what process.
How we answer it
Throwaway inbox messages go when the inbox expires. Forwarded mail is stored only while it is in flight and deleted once relayed, with a sweep for anything a failed relay left behind. A health check fails if anything sits past its deadline, so the promise breaks loudly rather than quietly.
More on privacy
Most disposable email is not private at all
On many throwaway-mail sites, anyone who types your address can read your inbox. That is not a bug in those products, it is how they are built.
What a masked email alias actually does
An alias is not a second mailbox. It is a valve on your real one, and understanding the difference tells you when it helps and when it does not.
Plus addressing: useful, and easier to strip than you think
you+shop@gmail.com is a fine way to label mail and a poor way to hide anything.