A privacy solution for email that you can actually move to

The setup is two parts and a move. One mailbox you own, on your own domain, for the accounts that matter. A mask for everything else. And a way off your old inbox that takes minutes, not a weekend. This post is the how-to that ties those together.

Why this shape

You don't want people reading your private mail, so you need a provider you trust. A free Gmail, Outlook or Hotmail account does not cut it, because the account is the product and your mail is read to sell you things. I suggest Tuta or Migadu, and the learning journey walks you through setting one up.

Beyond the provider, you need to be able to trust the sites you put your email into. Put the same address into an online questionnaire that you use for Instagram, and Instagram learns another layer of your psychology to exploit. This is why every one of those services gets a masked address instead, so you stay anonymous to them.

Part one: one mailbox you own

Use a mailbox on your own domain, hosted somewhere you pay rather than somewhere that reads your mail for ads. On your own domain the address is yours: if the host ever disappoints you, you move the domain to another host and keep the same address, and nobody can take it from you.

This is the address for the accounts that are you and that you want for years: your bank, government and health services, your main contacts. The Privacy Mogul journey sets this up for you, on the privacymogul.com domain or one of your own.

Set up your mailbox in the journey

Part two: a mask for everything else

Everything you do not trust or do not need long term gets a mask: a random forwarding address that lands in the same inbox and can be switched off the moment it starts leaking or spamming. A shop, a newsletter, a one-off signup. The mask blog covers which service to use and how it works.

Part three: moving off your old inbox

The mistake is treating this as one big job. It is two small moves that run in the background.

Forward, so you miss nothing. Turn on forwarding from your old inbox to your new address, so every new message arrives in both places and you can stop watching the old one. In Gmail this is Settings, then "Forwarding and POP/IMAP", then "Add a forwarding address": enter your new address, and Gmail sends it a code to confirm you own it. Once confirmed, choose "Forward a copy of incoming mail", and keep the original in Gmail so nothing is lost while you settle in. Outlook and the others have the same setting.

Switch accounts over slowly. From today, every new signup uses your new address, or a mask. Each time you log in to an old service, take the extra minute to change its email before you do anything else. Within a few months the accounts that matter answer to your address, and the old inbox fades into an archive that only forwards you the stragglers.

Bring your old mail across, if you want it. Forwarding only moves new mail. If you want your history in the new mailbox too, a host like Migadu can copy it over your old account's connection in one pass, so it is a one-time job rather than an ongoing one. It needs an app password from the old account and can take a while for a large mailbox, so it is worth doing once, in the background, and then forgetting.