Brave adds email aliases to help keep users’ real addresses private

Brave has introduced a new Email Aliases feature that gives users more control over the email addresses they share with websites. The feature allows people to create alternative addresses instead of giving companies access to their main inbox address.

The move is part of Brave’s wider focus on online privacy. Sharing the same email address across multiple websites makes it easier for companies and advertising platforms to connect activity to an individual, while using separate aliases can reduce the personal information exposed to each service.

Brave lets users create alternative email addresses

Email Aliases became available with Brave desktop version 1.94. After creating a Brave Account, users can generate an alternative email address directly from an email field when signing up for a website or service. Messages sent to that alias are then forwarded to the primary email address associated with the Brave Account.

The website receiving the address does not see the user’s real email address. This creates an additional layer between the individual and the service they are using, while still allowing important messages to reach the user’s normal inbox.

The feature could also make it harder for companies to connect a person’s activity across different online services. Businesses can provide customer email addresses to advertising platforms such as Google, Meta and LinkedIn, where those addresses may be matched with existing profiles. Because the matching can take place on company servers, browser-based tracking protections cannot always prevent this type of identification.

Using an alias can also reduce the exposure of a primary email address in the event of a data breach. If a company’s database is compromised, the leaked address may be an alias rather than the user’s main inbox, limiting the potential spread of their primary contact details.

However, aliases are not intended to act as a complete email filtering system. Brave does not automatically stop newsletters, advertising or other promotional messages from being forwarded. Any messages sent to an active alias can still arrive in the user’s primary inbox.

Users can deactivate an alias if it begins attracting unwanted messages. Once disabled, future emails sent to that address will no longer be forwarded, letting users cut off communication from a particular website without changing their main email address.

Brave is initially providing five aliases at no additional cost. The company has also said it plans to add a Premium option and support for mobile devices in the future.

Brave joins an established email privacy market

Although Brave’s implementation is new, the concept of using alternative email addresses to protect a primary inbox has been available through other services for several years. DuckDuckGo, for example, offers Email Protection, which provides users with private @duck.com addresses that forward messages to an existing inbox.

DuckDuckGo’s service goes beyond simply hiding an email address. It can also remove supported email trackers from messages before forwarding them, helping reduce the information senders can collect about when and how emails are opened.

Mozilla offers another comparable option through Firefox Relay. The service creates email masks that can be used in place of a real email address when signing up for websites and online services. Its free offering currently supports up to 50 masks, letting users maintain separate addresses for a wide range of accounts.

Brave’s approach differs mainly in how closely the feature is integrated with its browser. Rather than requiring users to visit a separate service whenever they need an alternative address, Brave lets users create an alias from an email field on a website.

This integration could make the privacy feature more convenient for people who already use Brave as their primary browser. It also adds another layer to the company’s broader collection of tools designed to limit how much information websites can use to identify and track users.

Email aliases expand Brave’s privacy tools

Brave has been adding features to help users keep different aspects of their online activity separate. The company recently introduced Containers, which allow accounts, cookies and browsing sessions to be isolated from one another.

Containers can be particularly useful for people who manage multiple accounts or want to prevent activity associated with one service from being mixed with another. Email Aliases complement that approach by addressing another piece of information that can link activity across websites.

An email address can remain useful as an identifier even when browser trackers and cookies are blocked. A person may use the same address when signing up for several services, allowing companies to recognise that those accounts belong to the same individual. Providing different aliases reduces the number of services that receive the same underlying identifier.

The feature does not eliminate online tracking or guarantee complete anonymity. Websites can still collect other information about visitors, and forwarded emails remain connected to the user’s primary inbox behind the scenes. Instead, the system is designed to reduce unnecessary exposure of the main email address and give users greater control over where it is shared.

For Brave, Email Aliases also strengthens the browser’s position among privacy-focused alternatives. With existing protections for browsing data now joined by tools for separating accounts and email identities, the company is building a broader set of features around limiting the information users reveal while browsing the web.