What is an email alias?

An email alias is an extra email address that has no inbox of its own. Every email sent to it is forwarded to one or more email accounts you choose. For example, if your bike repair shop reads its email at hello@yourbikerepairs.co.uk, you can add sales@yourbikerepairs.co.uk as an alias, and customers who write to sales land in the inbox you already use.

How do email aliases work?

An alias passes every message straight on and keeps nothing. When a customer writes to sales@yourbikerepairs.co.uk, the email goes to the forward address you picked, here hello@yourbikerepairs.co.uk. You can add more than one forward address, so the same email reaches you and the person who handles your orders.

You can't log in to an alias or send email from it. When you answer a customer who wrote to sales, your reply goes out from the account that received the email, hello@yourbikerepairs.co.uk, and that's the address the customer sees. If you want replies to come from sales@ itself, that address needs to be a full email account.

What are email aliases used for?

A small business can use aliases for four things:

• One address per role. Your business looks more professional when customers write to sales@ or support@, and everything still arrives in one inbox.
• A temporary address. Put jobs@yourbikerepairs.co.uk in a job ad and delete the alias once the vacancy is filled, so the spam that follows a published address ends with it.
• A team address. Add several forward addresses and one email reaches everyone on the list.
• A sign-up address. Give each newsletter or online shop you sign up with its own alias, and you can drop any of them later without changing your main address.

How is an alias different from forwarding and a catch-all address?

An alias is an address of its own, automatic forwarding is a setting on an account that already has an inbox, and a catch-all collects email sent to addresses that don't exist.

A catch-all picks up an email to suport@yourbikerepairs.co.uk that would otherwise go nowhere. It also catches email sent to an alias you've deleted, such as an old jobs@ address. We recommend pointing it at a separate account that you check now and then, so the spam it collects stays out of the inbox you work from every day.

Should you create an alias or a separate email account?

Create an alias when you only need to receive email at an address. Create a separate email account when someone needs to send from that address or keep an inbox of their own.

An alias is enough for most role addresses and needs almost no upkeep, as it has no inbox to clear out and no login to look after. A full account takes a little more setup and gives the address its own inbox and login, so a colleague can answer support questions as support@yourbikerepairs.co.uk.

Our advice: start with aliases for your role addresses, as they're enough while you answer those emails yourself. When someone else takes over sales or support, turn that address into a full account of its own.

How to create an email alias

Aliases are part of email on your domain with us, and our Email Essential and Email Unlimited plans both include them. If your business doesn't have email with us yet, choose an email plan and set up your first account, then create your aliases in the control panel.

1. Log in to the control panel and open the email administration.
2. Create a new alias and type the address you want, which has to be unique on your domain.
3. Add the forward address the emails should go to, add more if several people should get them, then save the alias.
4. Open the inbox of each forward address and confirm the verification email we send there.
5. Check that each forward address shows as verified: the alias now works.

If your screen looks different from these steps, our guide to creating an email alias walks through each one. You can delete the alias whenever you no longer need it.

Professional email on your own domain, with spam protection for every inbox.

Tips for managing your email aliases

Keep a list of your aliases and where you used each one, and look through it now and then. When an alias starts attracting spam, the list tells you which website or newsletter gave that address away. Deleting the alias is one of the simplest ways to fight spam, so remove it along with any aliases you no longer need.

An alias keeps your main address out of sight until you reply, but the account behind it receives everything sent to your aliases, phishing attempts included. Protect that account with a strong password and turn on two-factor authentication (2FA) where your login offers it, because the usual rules of email security apply to it like any other account.

Start with an email address on your own domain, and you can add sales@, support@ and any other alias your business needs as it grows.