The problem it solves
Most email addresses you are asked for are not really requests for correspondence. They are requests for a delivery channel: a confirmation link, a download, a one-time code. Handing over a permanent address for a single message is a lopsided trade — the message lasts a minute, the marketing list lasts years.
MAILDROP exists to close that gap. You get a working address before you finish reading this sentence, use it once, and let it disappear.
Design decisions we made on purpose
- No registration. An account would be a permanent record of every temporary inbox you ever opened, which defeats the point.
- Receive-only. Outbound sending would immediately be used for abuse, and abuse would cost every user their deliverability.
- Random addresses. Custom local parts let people squat or guess someone else's inbox.
- Short lifetimes. Currently 60 minutes. Data you never keep cannot leak.
- Sanitise before storing. Email HTML is untrusted input from strangers; it is cleaned on the server, not just hidden in the browser. See security.
- Plain polling. A small JSON request every few seconds is more reliable on shared hosting and mobile networks than a persistent connection.
Who it is for
Three groups, in practice: people signing up to something they expect to use once, developers checking that their own signup or password-reset mail actually arrives and renders, and anyone who wants to read a verification code without adding a permanent address to a list. The guides cover each in detail.
What it is not
It is not an anonymity tool, a mailbox provider, or a place to keep anything. If a message matters next week, it does not belong here — is temporary email safe? spells out where the line sits.
Domains we will not run
Receiving domains are commercial domains only. Educational, academic, school, university, military and government namespaces are rejected by the generator and by the admin tooling, because addresses in those namespaces imply an affiliation nobody here can verify.
Cost
Free, with no account tier. If advertising is introduced later it will sit in content areas of the site, never inside the inbox or beside the mailbox controls.