How can I use another email account to send and receive emails through trustmymail.com?
The most straightforward way to use trustmymail.com is through the web-based interface we provide. However, if you prefer to use another external email account (e.g., your work email address or an address provided by your ISP), you can have your messages to your trustmymail address forwarded to your external address. For this, you should check the "forwarding" button in the Mail Delivery screen after logging in. You need to have this address validated before you can activate the feature.This works in detail as follows:
Incoming email: a message sent to your trustmymail address is automatically forwarded to your external email address.
Outgoing: if you want to send a message from your external address, you should add ".trustmymail.com" to the email address of every recipient.
Example:
Frank (frank@trustmymail.com) wants to send an email to
joe@hotmail.com from his external account, but
using his trustmymail address.
Frank simply sends the message to joe@hotmail.com.trustmymail.com. Joe will receive the message, but from Frank's trustmymail address frank@trustmymail.com. Joe does not find out Frank's private address.
This technique ensures that the message goes through the trustmymail server first, and that your external address can be hidden. You should not tell your external address to anyone, or put it up on a website, etc. Your trustmymail.com address is the only address visible to the outside world; you use your external address purely as a private address, and never reveal it.
Of course, if the external address has been picked up by spammers already, spam will continue to be sent directly to the external address, bypassing trustmymail's spam protection. In this case, you can:
- Decide to use trustmymail's own web-based email interface instead;
- Set up a new external account, which you keep secret, and only use your trustmymail address as your public address;
- Set up a filter in your external account to reject all email where the FROM-address does NOT end in ".trustmymail.com". This keeps out all email that did not go through trustmymail first.
What about mailing lists or e-commerce sites, or other senders that are unable to respond?
If you want to receive email from addresses that cannot respond, e.g., mailing lists or e-commerce sites, then you can explicitly approve the first message sent from such an address. You can do this by checking your pending messages (i.e., those messages that are blocked because their senders are not trusted), and to tell trustmymail to let the message of interest through.For example, if you buy something at an on-line store, which then sends you a confirmation email, this email will usually not go through, as the sender will not be trusted. On the "my account" screen, simply go to "check pending messages", find the email from the on-line store, and approve it. It will then appear in your inbox.
Note: You have to do this within 24 hours of the reception of this message!
Other messages sitting in your pending list, such as spam, will remain blocked, of course, and disappear after 24 hours.
What question should I select?
The general idea is that you should ask a question that can relatively easily be answered by a human, but that would be difficult to answer by a machine. This avoids that spammers can circumvent your spam protection. Simple questions that almost anyone can answer include:
- What is the capital of [insert favorite country]?
- What is two plus three?
- ...
- What is my eye color?
- What are the last two digits of my office phone number?
- ...
- What are the last two digits of my cell phone number?
- What year was I born?
- ...
Things to keep in mind: An unstrusted sender must be able to answer your question exactly (i.e., letter by letter). Therefore, it is important to select a question that has a short, unambiguous answer. Don't ask questions that require more than a single-word answer or a number with a few digits.
A cool idea: if you want to use a TrustMyMail email account for your "exclusive" contacts, print the answer to your question on your business card. The question would then be "the secret word on my card?". Then only the in-crowd and their friends will be able to get in touch with you!
I have feedback for you - how can I get in touch?
As this service is still experimental, we would love to hear from you. Tell us what you think, how you are using the service, ideas, bug reports... The best way to get in touch with us is by sending email to info@trustmymail.com.Thanks!