{"id":36863,"date":"2021-09-30T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-30T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/?p=36863"},"modified":"2025-12-08T11:58:46","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T16:58:46","slug":"apple-hide-my-email","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/apple-hide-my-email","title":{"rendered":"Should Marketers Worry About Apple\u2019s Hide My Email?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t<div id=\"simple-text-block-block_8d978192a3ea6ad02309781ca37b97ad\" class=\"block-simple-text-block alignfull \" style=\"background-color:\">\n  <div class=\"container\">\n  \t<div class=\"row\">\n  \t\t<div class=\"col\">\n  \t\t\t<div class=\"copy\">\n  \t\t\t\t<p>Last week, Apple released iOS 15 and iPadOS 15. The biggest concern about that for marketers has been <a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/apple-mail-privacy-protection-for-marketers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mail Privacy Protection<\/a>. But what about Hide My Email?<\/p>\n<h2>Hide My Email is exactly that<\/h2>\n<p>Hide My Email is what it says it is: It allows people to hide any of their email addresses (e.g., iCloud, Gmail, etc.) from companies and even from other people by generating unique, random @icloud.com email addresses that automatically forward to their real email address. If people hide their email from five different companies, they will have generated five different fake emails\u2014one for each website. In other words, each fake email is used only once.<\/p>\n<p>There are two ways people can use Hide My Email (and they must be on the latest OS release):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">People may use <b>Sign in with Apple<\/b>\u2014Apple\u2019s version of a single sign-on (SSO) solution\u2014on apps and websites that support it. When doing so, they can then choose to share their real email address or generate a fake one.<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Alternatively, with an <b>iCloud+ subscription<\/b>, people can use Hide My Email on any form with an email field viewed in the Safari browser or create a random email address via iCloud.com for any purpose (like in-person events).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And, people can delete any or all of their fake email addresses at any time\u2014effectively cutting off marketers without so much as an unsubscribe.<\/p>\n<h2>What it means for email marketers<\/h2>\n<p>Let\u2019s get something out of the way first: People using Hide My Email <i>are still getting your emails<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>These randomly generated email addresses automatically forward to their real email address. So, you\u2019re still reaching your subscribers.<\/p>\n<p>But here\u2019s where it can get tricky\u2026<\/p>\n<p>These email addresses can be deleted, and when that happens? It will show as a hard bounce. If you have a lot of these, your email deliverability will be negatively impacted.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s no pattern or way to identify these randomized email addresses. While the usernames currently consist of random words with a 0 toward the end, this pattern is likely to change, and they all use the same domain name as people who actually use iCloud as their email service. Meaning, not every @icloud.com email address on your list comes from Hide My Email. They can be legitimate.<\/p>\n<p>You may not be able to tie email behavior to purchases if different email addresses are used. For example, someone can sign up for your newsletter with Hide My Email but then later make a purchase using their real email address.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, if you use email addresses as the account record, this may cause issues for your call centers or in-store teams. It\u2019s likely customers will reference their real email address when asked, meaning you won\u2019t be able to find their account if it\u2019s under their fake email address.<\/p>\n<p>And because each brand gets a unique fake version of one person\u2019s real email, it makes it difficult to tie multi-brand activity to one person when it comes to second-party data.<\/p>\n<p>That being said, you shouldn\u2019t have to worry too much about someone abusing your free trials or discount codes by signing up with multiple Hide My Email addresses. In testing, marketers have shared that Hide My Email can only be used once per website. And while there are ways around that, it\u2019s a cumbersome enough process that most people wouldn\u2019t bother.<\/p>\n<h2>To worry or not to worry?<\/h2>\n<p>So, should you be concerned about Hide My Email?<\/p>\n<p>Not really.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s what a few email marketing experts shared during our recent webinar, <a rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/resources\/confessions-of-a-marketer-apple-mail-privacy-protection\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Confessions of a Marketer: Apple Mail Privacy Protection<\/a>.<\/p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-35150 size-thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Brian-Sisolak-150x150.png\" alt=\"Brian Sisolak\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Brian-Sisolak-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Brian-Sisolak-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Brian-Sisolak-1024x1024.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Brian-Sisolak-768x768.png 768w, https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Brian-Sisolak-1536x1536.png 1536w, https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Brian-Sisolak-2048x2048.png 2048w, https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Brian-Sisolak-545x545.png 545w, https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Brian-Sisolak-1800x1800.png 1800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/>\n<p>\u201cMy opinion is that Hide My Email won\u2019t be a widely adopted feature. It already exists (but is now being elevated more in the UI). But even so, it sees very little adoption currently.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <b>Brian Sisolak<\/b>, Founder &amp; President at PeakInBox<\/p>\n<p>One thing you\u2019ll want to keep an eye on is the growth of @icloud.com email addresses on your list. They\u2019re not all from Hide My Email, but seeing an unusual increase may be a sign that people don\u2019t trust your brand\u2014and <i>that<\/i> is what you should worry about.<\/p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-35152 size-thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Matt-Dionne-150x150.png\" alt=\"Matt Dionne\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Matt-Dionne-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Matt-Dionne-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Matt-Dionne-1024x1024.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Matt-Dionne-768x768.png 768w, https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Matt-Dionne-1536x1536.png 1536w, https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Matt-Dionne-2048x2048.png 2048w, https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Matt-Dionne-545x545.png 545w, https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Matt-Dionne-1800x1800.png 1800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/>\u201cI don\u2019t see this having any larger of an impact than it already does through other similar services. This has always been a reflection of the level of trust the recipient has with your business or org. If someone is giving you a disposable address or their junk mail address, do they really want to engage with you? Are they worth keeping on your list?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <b>Matt Dionne<\/b>, Principal Template Engineer at Constant Contact<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-34460 size-thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/steve-atkins-150x150.png\" alt=\"steve-atkins\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/steve-atkins-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/steve-atkins.png 172w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><br \/>\n\u201cI expect that most use of Hide My Email will be when users don\u2019t trust the org they\u2019re giving the email address to, to not use it outside the scope it was provided for. So, how much you need to be concerned will depend on how you gather and use email addresses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <b>Steve Atkins<\/b>, Owner at Word to the Wise<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-36183 size-thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/lauren-meyer-150x150.png\" alt=\"lauren meyer\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/lauren-meyer-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/lauren-meyer.png 240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><br \/>\n\u201cAgree with Brian and Steve. I\u2019d say only be worried about this if you\u2019re already experiencing challenges related to users giving you a disposable email address.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <b>Lauren Meyer<\/b>, Chief Marketing Officer at SocketLabs<\/p>\n<h2>It all boils down to trust<\/h2>\n<p>Like Apple\u2019s Mail Privacy Protection, their Hide My Email feature is a way to protect people\u2019s privacy and data because the trust between businesses and their audiences have been broken way too many times.<\/p>\n<p>If you give people a reason to subscribe and continue to engage with your emails for the long haul, then it doesn\u2019t matter if someone uses Hide My Email or not. Because again, you\u2019re still reaching a real person. Just with a different email address.<\/p>\n<div class=\"cta\">\n<table style=\"background-color: #f2f3f6;\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"block-1\" style=\"padding: 20px 10px 20px 20px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-4104 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/logo-140x150.png\" alt=\"Litmus logo\" width=\"140\" height=\"150\" \/><\/td>\n<td class=\"block-2\" style=\"padding: 20px 20px 20px 10px;\">\n<p class=\"zero\"><strong>Create more effective emails with Litmus<\/strong>\n<p class=\"zero\">Are your subscribers truly engaging with your emails? Get deeper insights with Litmus Email Analytics\u2014and empower your team to create higher-performing campaigns.<\/p>\n<p class=\"zero\"><a class=\"btn medium orange button\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/pricing\/plus\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Book a Demo<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n  \t\t\t<\/div>\n  \t\t<\/div>\n  \t<\/div>\n  <\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Learn more about Hide My Email, what it means for email marketing, and why marketers can keep calm and email on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":36900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[110,45,9954],"blog_category":[57],"class_list":["post-36863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-apple","tag-deliverability","tag-mail-privacy-protection","blog_category-observations"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.5 (Yoast SEO v27.7) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Hide My Email: Should Marketers Worry? (Hint: Nope) - Litmus<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn more about Hide My Email, what it means for email marketing, and why marketers can keep calm and email on.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/apple-hide-my-email\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Should Marketers Worry About Apple\u2019s Hide My Email?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Learn more about Hide My Email, what it means for email marketing, and why marketers can keep calm and email on.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/apple-hide-my-email\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Litmus\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/litmusapp\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-09-30T14:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-12-08T16:58:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/hide-my-email.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1380\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"725\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@litmusapp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@litmusapp\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Hide My Email: Should Marketers Worry? (Hint: Nope) - Litmus","description":"Learn more about Hide My Email, what it means for email marketing, and why marketers can keep calm and email on.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/apple-hide-my-email","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Should Marketers Worry About Apple\u2019s Hide My Email?","og_description":"Learn more about Hide My Email, what it means for email marketing, and why marketers can keep calm and email on.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/apple-hide-my-email","og_site_name":"Litmus","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/litmusapp","article_published_time":"2021-09-30T14:00:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-12-08T16:58:46+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1380,"height":725,"url":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/hide-my-email.png","type":"image\/png"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@litmusapp","twitter_site":"@litmusapp","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/apple-hide-my-email#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/apple-hide-my-email"},"author":{"name":"","@id":""},"headline":"Should Marketers Worry About Apple\u2019s Hide My Email?","datePublished":"2021-09-30T14:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2025-12-08T16:58:46+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/apple-hide-my-email"},"wordCount":9,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/apple-hide-my-email#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/hide-my-email.png","keywords":["Apple","Deliverability","Mail Privacy Protection"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/apple-hide-my-email#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/apple-hide-my-email","url":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/apple-hide-my-email","name":"Hide My Email: Should Marketers Worry? (Hint: Nope) - Litmus","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/apple-hide-my-email#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/apple-hide-my-email#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/hide-my-email.png","datePublished":"2021-09-30T14:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2025-12-08T16:58:46+00:00","description":"Learn more about Hide My Email, what it means for email marketing, and why marketers can keep calm and email on.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/apple-hide-my-email#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/apple-hide-my-email"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/apple-hide-my-email#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/hide-my-email.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/hide-my-email.png","width":1380,"height":725,"caption":"Apple's Hide My Email"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/apple-hide-my-email#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Should Marketers Worry About Apple\u2019s Hide My Email?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/","name":"Litmus","description":"Are you getting the most out of your email marketing?","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/#organization","name":"Litmus Software","url":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/featured-image.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/featured-image.png","width":600,"height":314,"caption":"Litmus Software"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/litmusapp","https:\/\/x.com\/litmusapp"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":""}]}},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36863"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121577,"href":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36863\/revisions\/121577"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36863"},{"taxonomy":"blog_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog_category?post=36863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}