FAQ: everything you want to know about this disposable email tool

Work through this checklist and nine times out of ten you'll solve it on the spot:

• 1Double-check the address: tap "Copy address" again and compare it character by character with what you pasted — leaving out part of it is the most common mistake.
• 2Check the countdown: if it already hit zero, the inbox is gone and anything sent to it will bounce — get a new address and register again.
• 3Wait 1–2 more minutes and tap "Refresh": most mail arrives in seconds, but some senders (especially large marketing platforms) queue it.
• 4Confirm the other site actually sent it: go back and look for any "failed to send" or "invalid email" notice.
• 5The domain got rejected: some platforms block disposable-email domains outright. Switch to a forwarding alias instead — it rides a real forwarding path with a much higher acceptance rate.

The site maintains a blocklist of disposable-email domains and rejects registration outright. It's not a bug on our end — it's their policy. Two workarounds: use a forwarding alias created after signing in (to the receiving site it looks like an ordinary address), or use your real email for services you plan to stick with long-term.

Message bodies render in an isolated sandbox true to the original layout, with HTML and images supported. Some messages are plain-text only, or host images on the sender's own server (a broken image is on their end, not ours). If a message stays blank the whole way through, delete it and ask the sender to resend, or email support@foxtemp.com with the approximate time and we'll look into it.

Temp inbox: the whole inbox is destroyed along with its mail the moment the address expires — it cannot be recovered, and that's by design, not a support process you can negotiate. Forwarding aliases: the online archive keeps mail for 30 days, with a remaining-days counter on every message's detail view, and it's deleted automatically once that window closes; you can also delete a single message or clear everything manually at any time. The full breakdown of how destruction works lives on the Privacy by Design page.

Tap "Refill 3 hours" to reset the countdown to a full 3 hours, as many times as you like — but the total lifetime of a single address from creation is capped at 24 hours. In other words, one address can only stay with you for a single day at most. Need longer? Meet the forwarding alias — it's valid long-term and exists exactly for this scenario.

"Getting a new address" is treated exactly like early destruction: once confirmed, the old inbox and every message inside it are deleted immediately, the same way natural expiry works. That's why there's a confirmation dialog before switching — it's your last chance to read anything in the old inbox.

No. When a temp inbox receives a message with an attachment, the list flags it as "has an attachment," but the file content itself is never stored, so there's nothing to view or download online — this is both a privacy choice (less stored data means less risk) and a way to keep the temp inbox from being abused as an anonymous file drop. The message body is unaffected and reads normally.

Use a forwarding alias. Attachments are handled in three size tiers based on the total message size: ≤ 50MB forwards with attachments to your real inbox and stays in the 30-day archive, downloadable online; 50–100MB still forwards completely (attachments included), but the online archive keeps text only; over 100MB is rejected server-side outright. The vast majority of invoices, contracts, and photo bundles fall well within the 50MB tier.

An alias is a long-lived @foxtemp.com address; mail sent to it auto-forwards to your real inbox — a site sees the alias, you get the mail at your usual address. In one line: the temp inbox is a "use-once, toss it" box, an alias is a "nameplate in front of your real inbox." Use the former for a quick verification code with no sign-up; use the latter for subscriptions and account binding. Full details on the forwarding alias page.

A prefix must start with a letter, be 3–30 characters, and contain only letters, digits, dots, hyphens, or underscores; reserved names like admin or support aren't allowed, and a prefix already taken by someone else will prompt you to pick another. Too lazy to think of one? Tap "Randomize," or leave it blank and let the system assign it. Each account gets a quota of 100, with a live progress bar in the console.

Pausing is reversible: while paused, incoming mail is dropped outright (not forwarded, not archived), and you can resume anytime — the address still belongs to you. Deleting is permanent: the address stops receiving mail immediately and can't be reactivated, though its existing archive entries are unaffected and simply stop growing. When unsure, pause and watch for a few days before deciding to delete.

Blocking is fully transparent to you: the archive shows the content and reason behind every blocked message. If it's a false positive, open the detail view and tap "Mark as not spam" — it's reinstated immediately, and that sender's future mail won't be blocked again. Failed forwards work the same way, with a "Retry forwarding" button on the detail view.

Every temp inbox has its own independent access token, so only someone holding the full link can open it; everything is destroyed once the address expires. But let's be honest about the boundary: a temporary address works on a "whoever has the link can view it" model — it guards against spam and profiling, not against eavesdropping. Always use your own real email for banking, payments, or government-related mail. How we store and destroy data is spelled out line by line on this page.

Signing in works on "email + 6-digit code": receiving the code proves you control that inbox, so there's no need to invent another password that could get breached elsewhere. Codes expire, resends have a 60-second cooldown, and frequent requests are rate-limited. If you're worried about the inbox itself being compromised, enable two-factor authentication (TOTP) in the console — every future sign-in will also need a code from your authenticator app.

We don't sell data, run third-party ad scripts, or do cross-site tracking; message content is only ever used for "forwarding it to you" and "spam filtering," and everything is deleted automatically once its retention window ends. Your real email is stored solely as a forwarding destination. Full terms are on the privacy policy.

Receive-only: neither the temp inbox nor forwarding aliases can send or reply to mail — which, by design, rules out the whole platform ever being used to spam anyone, and is a big part of why many sites are willing to allow our domain. Everything is free, with no hidden paid tier — see the terms of service for details.