No Name Online

While there are many reasons why you would want to send an anonymous email, there are few actual ways to send a completely anonymous email. This is one of the reasons that – while in a fit of anger or emotional outburst – there’s a flurry of searches online “how to send an anonymous email”. There just aren’t that many reliable ways to do it.

Those who are big on privacy often want to use some type of service while others mainly want to mask their identity for fear of repercussions. Unfortunately, any standard email is going to track and easily reveal identifying information including who sent it as well as the PC information. If you try to send your email through a webmail environment, your IP address is attached. With such information being tracked, How do you send an anonymous email that’s truly anonymous?

A Special Account: This is the simplest way to send an anonymous email but it’s also the least anonymous. It really only works if you want to send an email to someone and you don’t want to reveal your identity. Mind you if they know how to read headers and they have any kind of email tracking software they can easily trace the email back to the source.

Go Off Site: If you’re not sure how to send an anonymous email from your own machine you can go off site and head to an internet café or some other location with available web access. Doing so can disguise the IP address but if someone is intent on tracking the source of a message they can discuss the access and the anonymous email with the owners of the location once the IP is traced. Since most either require ID info to use computers or they use CCTV systems, your activity is still technically logged.

Use a Remail: This is the most popular type of service and while they can be found all over the net, few are actually reliable save for a select few. Most are defunct and simply don’t work once you hit submit. These privacy services will strip the data from your message, including your identifying info, and forward it on to the recipient. To improve the security, you can use multiple remailers. Likewise, you can use a web-based service to enter your information online and have the service send the anonymous email for you.

Keep in mind that no service online or method is 100% anonymous. While the data you send is encrypted and/or removed, these services are not required to go to bat for you and help you hide if a crime is committed. If asked to do so, they will generally turn over and reveal information that was removed from a message – including identifying information – if subpoenaed by the authorities.