this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2026
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DeGoogle Yourself

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For those of you who use an email address with a custom domain name, like first@firstlast.com, do you use that email address for every online account you create? It seems weird to me to do that if the email address is also my professional address and the domain is used for my professional/portfolio website, but maybe I'm overthinking it.

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[–] redlemace@lemmy.world 11 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

No! For mail I subscribe / register to because I want to, it's often @mydomain.tld. So I can identify quickly who it comes from, create rules, and see who sold/gave away my email.

For crap that just demands email, I use a 10 minute mail account. If that does not work, crap goes to crap : hotmail of gmail.

In your case, i'd buy a second domain to separate work and private. I don't run a business but some money goes around in my hobby (way way below tax thresholds) and that's how I have it....

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

I use theirdomain.tld@mydomain.tld for literally everything. They all go to the same mailbox, and I use filters.

[–] elvith@feddit.org 4 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I despise those companies that filter their domain or company name in the email address at signup and don't allow you to do that. It's rare, but some do. That being said - those are usually hardcore and can regularly be defeated by a strategically placed underscore or dash in their tld or company name.

[–] GazaShaggy@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

I just had this with Samsung so did Smasnug instead.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago

I think I’ve only encountered one in the last decade, and yes, it’s easy to circumvent.

[–] Reannlegge@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 days ago

I follow the same scheme but I throw in random stuff to, incase I want a second account or extended free trials.

[–] redlemace@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

so we are doing it the same way ;) I only have tree mailboxes. My mailbox, Another for my system alerts, and one big cach-all box

[–] Levi@lemmy.ca 8 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I use a different one for every signup and have been doing it that way for decades. To make it easier to remember, I usually add the website name in the email like 'google@mydomain.ca'. That way if I start getting spam from that address I know who to blame. It also makes it easy to send all that incoming spam directly to the garbage.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Same. I’m surprised this hasn’t caught on more. Fastmail makes it very easy and for no additional cost: https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/1500000277942-Catch-all-wildcard-aliases

[–] wetsoggybread@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

He another fastmail user. I love the masked emails feature. Buying my own domain and setting up an email for it is probably one of the better things I've spent money on.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 days ago

It’s the most featureful mail/calendar/contacts/file service I know of, and it exposes APIs, should you want to extend it further.

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 3 points 3 days ago

I use me@mydomain.com as my primary, contact@mydomain.com publicly, and storename_or_servicename@mydomain.com for stores or services

[–] 0144927536231884@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 3 days ago

Others have already responded to your question more directly, but I also wanted to encourage a few other options for you and other people considering a bring-your-own-domain. You may have already navigated these, but I wanted to show how you are probably NOT overthinking it!

It will depend on your setup or chosen platform, but you don't necessarily need to use the 'recipient' addresses as your actual login address or 'real' mailbox address. As others described, you can have your kitchenware retailer and your government accounts send to their own dedicated addresses but have them land in the same mailbox. If you encounter a situation where you specifically need to send correspondence from that address, you can set that up later.

A connected but separate consideration is how you want your mailbox(es) to be organized. Do you want to read all of your email in the same mailbox, or do you want to separate human correspondence from services/machine mailings? Do you want to consolidate all of your Sent and Archived mail in the same mailbox, or separated? Do you want to have a completely isolated login address, or are you comfortable sharing that address with mailing use cases?

Again, some of these options may not be available with your given vendor, but it is possible with many of them. Your decisions will be based on your spam management goals, security goals/threat model, and your own workflow and email storage preferences. Have fun :)

[–] Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

No. For most online activities, I use pseudonyms. For shopping, where I want things delivered to my home, I use the real postal address, and most times still with a pseudonym email.

Only where I actually want to look serious, I use this email with my real name as the domain name.

[–] aim_at_me@lemmy.nz 2 points 3 days ago

Bitwarden generates me a unique random string appended by my domain name for every account.

<$randomvariable>@mydomain.nz

[–] shrek_is_love@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 days ago

I use a random email address provided by DuckDuckGo for services that aren't super important (each service gets its own random address)

https://duckduckgo.com/email/

[–] Reannlegge@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 days ago

I have a domain name, if I wanted to create a professional website for a CV or whatever it would be cv.mydomain.ca I could change the auto forwarding away from my blog and just have some landing site.

As for emails no, I do not have one address, I make a new email address for everything (service name),(random Saskatchewan slang)(3 random numbers)@mydomain.ca if a email gets leaked or spammy I either have my server reply with address not found and delete the email, or the email just gets automatically deleted. I get next to no spam and I have extended free trials 2 or 3 times.

I used to get my email hosted by hosthero but they F’d me over the coals because they did not offer a wildcard email. I now have my stuff hosted with easydns who does have a wildcard option.