Temp mail is an email address that works for a limited time and then ceases to exist. You generate one on a site like 15minutemail.com, use it for whatever sign-up or verification you need, and walk away. Fifteen minutes later, the address and everything in it are permanently gone. No cleanup required on your end.
The concept solves a specific problem: the internet demands your email address constantly, but most of those demands don't deserve your real one.
Every email address you hand over becomes a permanent entry in someone else's database. That database gets sold to marketing partners, scraped by bots, or breached by attackers. The result is predictable: your inbox fills with promotional emails you never asked for, phishing attempts that reference services you vaguely remember signing up for, and password reset notifications for accounts someone is trying to hijack.
The average office worker receives 121 emails per day. Nearly half of all global email traffic is spam. These numbers exist because email addresses are treated as permanent, reusable identifiers. Temp mail rejects that premise. The address exists long enough to serve its purpose, then it's gone — taking the spam vector with it.
On 15minutemail.com, the timer is set to 15 minutes. This isn't arbitrary. Most email verifications complete in under 60 seconds. The remaining 14 minutes are a buffer for slow senders, multi-step verifications, or the occasional service that takes its time generating a confirmation email.
When the timer expires, a cleanup process immediately deletes the inbox record, all stored messages, and any file attachments. The mail server starts bouncing any new messages sent to that address. There is no archive, no recycling bin, no "recently deleted" folder. The data is gone in the most literal sense.
If you need more time, the extend button resets the countdown. Each press gives you another fresh 15-minute window.
The use cases cluster around one theme: interactions where you need an email address but don't need the relationship that comes with giving out your real one.
Email aliases (like Gmail's plus addressing or Apple's Hide My Email) route messages to your real inbox. They hide your primary address from the service you're signing up for, but the emails still arrive in your real mailbox. You still see the spam. You still need to manage filters and unsubscribe from things.
Temp mail is fundamentally different because the inbox is separate and temporary. Messages never touch your real email. When the address expires, the messages are deleted at the source. There's nothing to filter, nothing to unsubscribe from, nothing cluttering your real inbox.
Aliases protect your address. Temp mail protects your attention.
15minutemail.com collects zero personal data. No account creation, no phone number, no name, no IP logging. The server knows two things: a randomly generated email address and the messages it received. Both are deleted after 15 minutes.
There are no analytics scripts tracking your behavior on the site. No advertising cookies profiling you across the web. No browser fingerprinting identifying your device. The service is designed around the principle that the best way to protect user data is to never collect it in the first place.
The site works in 20 languages with full interface translation, including right-to-left support for Arabic and proper rendering for Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.
Temp mail is receive-only. You cannot send messages from it. You should not use it for any account you plan to keep — banking, healthcare, government, social media you actually use. Those need a permanent address tied to your identity.
Some platforms detect and block temporary email domains. Streaming services, financial institutions, and identity verification platforms are the most common blockers. For those, your real address is the only option.
For the majority of online sign-ups — the ones that don't matter next week — temp mail handles it cleanly.
Get a 15-minute temporary email now →
