How to setup disposable email aliases (craigslist style)?

Question

Writing my own "craigslist" in .NET, trying to figure out how to create disposable email aliases (craigslist type)?

Here's what I mean by "craigslist style".

My website is: somecoolurl.com

User creates an account, but doesn't want to give his/her email out as contact when posting on the site.

I want to give the user a TEMP email asdflkasfdjlaksdj@somecoolurl.com and alias that to their real email. When the user wants to get a new email, the TEMP gets canned and a new email gets created.

Can you describe what "craigslist style" is for people who aren't familiar with that? — Greg Hewgill, Feb 11 '10 at 07:04

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:55

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Are you talking about email address piping? Check out this SO question Best way to send anonymous email like craigslist

Here is how to pipe incomming mail on IIS

edited May 23 '17 at 11:55

Community

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answered Feb 11 '10 at 07:24

Tadas Šukys

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Implementation example would be interesting for me too. Especialy using IIS. – Tadas Šukys Feb 11 '10 at 16:26

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 11 '10 at 07:12

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Hmm, not exactly sure what you're referring to with "craigslist" but I do know that in an app that I currently built, I purchased the SmarterMail app from http://smartertools.com and used their .NET API as part of my software.

When a user signs up and pays, I generate a random string (you could make it more meaningful if you want) and then append it to the domain name (fke34s@example.com)

From there I create the email address via the SmarterMail API and assign the password based on the users existing password.

Then I have a watcher the checks to see if the paid subscription lapses... if it does, I disable the account for X days. If the user doesn't renew after X days, the watcher deletes the account (this keeps my total users down since I didn't pay for the unlimited license yet).

Works very well.

answered Feb 11 '10 at 07:12

Chase Florell

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will emails sent to fke34s@example.com be forwarded to user's real email? can you create x123@example.com and re-alias it with user's real email? – roman m Feb 11 '10 at 07:19
Yes you can create alias's as well. My users wanted a private email that did not get mixed in with their regular accounts, so I never bothered. But it is possible to make aliases. – Chase Florell Feb 11 '10 at 07:22
look here "do a find for the word Alias" - http://www.smartertools.com/SmarterMail/Compare-Mail-Server-Editions.aspx – Chase Florell Feb 11 '10 at 07:24

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 11 '10 at 08:45

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Set up a catch-all account. Then use C# to log in with IMAP or POP and forward according to your rules.

answered Feb 11 '10 at 08:45

Esben Skov Pedersen

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How to setup disposable email aliases (craigslist style)?

3 Answers3