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How can I send email anonymously? We used to track email's IP and its location based upon the email headers, and there are many possible ways to track the email's id's which were sent by the anonymous service too. My query is it possible to send anonymous emails?

I wish to send the email which cant be tracked by others - using virtual machines may be one idea, but there were matter of high risks which can be tracked easily.

How can we send anonymous email?

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    Can you give us a clearer idea of your "threat model" - who is trying to track your mail back to you? Are they well resourced and determined?
    – Graham Hill
    Commented Nov 27, 2012 at 14:12

6 Answers 6

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Update: This answer is currently outdated. After having its servers raided by the FBI, TorMail no longer exists. I currently use CounterMail.

TorMail is the best* mailing service for anonymity. Why?

  • Absolutely no signup confirmation required (unlike GMail for example).
  • Accessed via the Tor network (Even the mail server doesn't know your IP).
  • Unlike other mailing services (Hotmail, GMail, Guerilla Mail, even Hushmail), TorMail doesn't have any info about you** to give to authorities even if forced by a court order.


*Some time ago I was very interested in this subject, I've looked into it a lot, and when I say "best" I mean among the ones I've looked into.

**They might have some information about you, like the signature provided by your browser, but not your IP. But they claim they don't keep any logs, and personally I trust them to some extent.

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    I would strongly advise against using TorMail and other small email providers for "normal" use. One of the major pitfalls of using "cloud storage" is that if your provider decides to cut you off from your data or credential (i.e. you email address), there is nothing you can do. It is generally not difficult to identify an individual by the contents of their emails and there is no way to be certain that TorMail is not selling or giving away your information. TorMail is best used by those who are able to detach the content of their emails from their identities.
    – user22208
    Commented Jun 16, 2013 at 15:04
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Anonymous relay mailers allow you to encrypt messages to them in a chain much like how TOR works for Internet traffic. In this case, the article linked is very comprehensive, so I'll leave the explanation to that. Read up on it, find some servers, send some test mail.

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Just use a service like Guerilla Mail or if you want to send a large amount get a server registered to a proxy and connect via tor.

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If the volume is low, create an account on rocketmail, hotmail, google, whatever - then wander into your favorite coffee shop and send away

For more volume, the above solutions work fine - they just take a little more initial effort

And for even more volume, errr, that kinda sounds like spam so I won't offer a suggestion :-)

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Another option is via the i2p network which provides anonymous email functionality as part of the i2p client. i2p is arguably 'more anonymous' than tor due to its architecture.

Mixmaster and mixmeister is another option but more of a hassle to set up in my opinion.

Also, I've found that Gmail removes certain headers which make it slightly harder to trace than Hotmail.

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  • What is the i2p network? Please provide an explanation or reference. What is Mixmaster and mixmeister and how do they provide anonymity? What headers does Gmail remove that Hotmail does not?
    – this.josh
    Commented Nov 29, 2012 at 1:08
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    Come on now, did you even TRY Google? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixmaster_anonymous_remailer i2p2.de
    – user5065
    Commented Nov 29, 2012 at 19:54
  • Regarding the email headers its been a while since I looked at this, but I think its was the X-Forwarded-For (XFF) headers.
    – user5065
    Commented Nov 29, 2012 at 19:58
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    Hi @Autonomoid welcome to the site. The purpose of my questions is to help improve your answer. Part of the puropse of this site is to provide archival quality answers. This means that refering to Google or any search site is not very helpful. When an author responds to my comments by improving their answer I usually up-vote them.
    – this.josh
    Commented Nov 30, 2012 at 5:26
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A lot depends on your assumptions about the resources and determination available to those who would want to break your anonymity. If you want to send a prank email to a co-worker, you have a lot less to worry about than if you are the head of the CIA and want to carry on an affair secretly despite the entire resources of the U.S. Government arrayed against you.

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