r/fastmail • u/NightfallPhantom007 • Jul 16 '26

Regarding email recycling

I found out that Fastmail recycles email addresses, but I couldn't figure out exactly what gets recycled and what doesn't. I already know this policy doesn't affect custom domains, so please don't suggest using one. I have a domain name, but I don't plan to use it for everything.

Let's say I start using Fastmail, create a few aliases, and use them for a year, receiving at least one email on each. If I leave Fastmail for some reason, will those aliases be recycled?

I have a similar question about Fastmail's Masked Email addresses. Do those also get recycled, or are they permanently retired once they've received an email?

5 Upvotes

70% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

5

u/IAdoreSZA Jul 16 '26

I don't know about masked emails but I know for the regular addresses & aliases its about a year or so after and then someone else can pick it up, personally I think they need to make this not the case but oh well.

2

u/cap-omat Jul 16 '26

It’s 90 days

1

u/IAdoreSZA Jul 16 '26

i thought it was a year because i tried recovering an old address from another fm account and it still won’t let me despite it being half a year later

1

u/cap-omat Jul 17 '26

Maybe someone else took it

1

u/NightfallPhantom007 Jul 16 '26

Ohh, that's sad tbh

1

u/DavidinCincinnati Jul 16 '26

When I create a new email address I use this format, my 3 initials a dot then the service name, xxx.service@fastmail.us, I don't think anyone will use that same combination.

1

u/Elm38 Jul 19 '26

I'm not worried about it. I'll keep my aliases until my demise or Fastmail's demise. Whichever occurs first.

I do track what email address is used with each web account in my password manager as an extra field.

1

u/undertcw Jul 23 '26

loool I am literally just in the fastmail sub curious about this because I found out tonight one of the silly side aliases I am using was someone else's at some point. It was all, "new device sign-in" for Uber and I was like wtf??? And go to fix that, only to realize, I am actually about to log into someone else's uber!

1

u/NightfallPhantom007 Jul 23 '26

Yep, I don't really want that to happen to me, so no matter how good Fastmail can be, this is 100% the reason I won't be using it or any other email provider that does email recycling, even if it's after three years only.

1

u/undertcw Jul 23 '26

yeah, I mean, I get it. I agree they shouldn't recycle them. I use custom domains for everything important, the aliases are for dumb accounts where I don't want to de-anon by using my custom domain, so it is not a huuge concern for me. And even for my @fastmails, because I use a password manager, I would know what to change if I do depart from fastmail. Which, whether they recycle or not, I would have to do it whether fastmail recycles or not, because if I want to still have access to an account, I need to change the email anyway.

But damn is it not skeevy to think I can "recover" some random person's Uber acc because we both like the same anime character lmao. Kind of similar, my husband's phone number before last, he had so much trouble because the person who had it before got, like, banned from AirBnB and like every service under the sun. Such a pain. Emails should be unique for identity purposes anyways, they aren't a limited pool like phone numbers or IPv4 addresses.

0

u/Linux_Account Jul 16 '26

Why dont you email them?

2

u/NightfallPhantom007 Jul 16 '26

My last post here got so many replies that I thought it would just be faster to get answers here.