Three alias systems promise the same outcome: give a website an address that is not your real one. They differ in cost, in how many aliases you get, in whether you can reply, and in how hard they are to leave. The right choice depends on which of those limits you will hit first.
How Each System Works
Apple Hide My Email generates random addresses on Apple’s relay domain that forward to your iCloud inbox. It is part of iCloud+, the paid tier of iCloud storage, and it appears inside Safari and Mail on Apple devices. You can create, label, deactivate, or delete each alias from Settings.
Gmail plus-addressing is not a separate service. Adding a tag to your Gmail address, such as yourname+shop@gmail.com, still delivers to your normal inbox, and you can filter on the tag. It costs nothing and needs no setup, because it is a built-in property of Gmail addresses.
SimpleLogin is a dedicated alias service, now part of Proton. It generates random aliases on shared domains, forwards mail to a mailbox you choose, and routes replies back through the alias so the recipient never sees your real address. It works in browsers and apps on any platform, and its code is open source.
The Comparison
| Feature | Apple Hide My Email | Gmail Plus-Addressing | SimpleLogin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Requires paid iCloud+ (entry tier around $0.99/month) | Free with Gmail | Free tier; Premium $36/year or $4/month |
| Alias count | Unlimited | Unlimited tags | 10 on free tier, unlimited on Premium |
| Reply from alias | Yes, through Apple Mail or iCloud.com | Only with manual send-as setup | Yes, via reverse-alias on all tiers |
| Custom domain | No | No | Premium only |
| Mailboxes | Forwards to your iCloud inbox | Your Gmail inbox | 1 on free tier, unlimited on Premium |
| Platform lock-in | Apple devices and iCloud.com | Anywhere Gmail works, but tied to Google | Any inbox, any platform |
Where Each One Wins
Apple Hide My Email wins on friction for people already inside Apple’s ecosystem. Aliases appear at the moment a signup form asks for an address, and deactivating one takes seconds. Its weakness is the boundary: outside Apple devices and iCloud.com, managing aliases is awkward, and there is no custom domain option. If you leave iCloud+, you lose the relay.
Gmail plus-addressing wins on price and simplicity, and loses on privacy. A plus address still reveals your base address to anyone who reads it, so a shop that leaks yourname+shop@gmail.com has effectively leaked yourname@gmail.com. Tags also break on some signup forms that reject the plus character. Treat plus-addressing as an organizer and a spam filter, not as a privacy shield.
SimpleLogin wins on control and portability. Ten free aliases cover a careful starter set, replies work without extra setup, and Premium adds custom domains and unlimited aliases for less than a coffee a month. Its cost is setup effort: you manage aliases in a separate dashboard, and the free tier’s 10-alias cap runs out fast if you assign one alias per service.
The Lock-In Question
Lock-in matters more than most feature lists admit. An alias system holds the forwarding path for every account you register with it. Switching providers means updating the address on each of those accounts, which is exactly the chore aliases were meant to avoid.
Apple’s relay is the hardest to leave, because aliases live inside your Apple account and forward only to iCloud. Gmail tags are the easiest to leave, because they are just labels on an address you already own — but they also protect the least. SimpleLogin sits between: aliases forward to any mailbox, and Premium custom domains let you keep your addresses even if you change providers, since the domain is yours.
Setting Each One Up
Setup effort is the hidden cost in this comparison, so it is worth stating plainly. Apple Hide My Email needs no setup beyond an iCloud+ subscription: the option appears in Safari’s email fields and in Settings under your Apple ID. You create aliases at the moment you need them, which is why people who have it tend to actually use it.
Gmail plus-addressing needs no setup at all. Type your address with a tag and it works. The work comes later, in filters: create one filter per tag to label or file the mail, or the tags only organize nothing. Replying from a plus address requires adding it as a send-as address in Gmail settings, a step most users skip.
SimpleLogin needs the most setup and repays it with the most control. Create an account, pick a destination mailbox, and install the browser extension to generate aliases inside signup forms. Name each alias after its service so you can find it later, and test the reply path once before relying on it for an account you care about. Premium setup adds a custom domain, which means configuring DNS records — a one-time task that buys permanent portability.
Final Verdict
Pick Apple Hide My Email if you already pay for iCloud+ and live on Apple devices. Pick Gmail plus-addressing if you want free organization and accept that it hides nothing. Pick SimpleLogin if you want real per-service privacy that survives a change of inbox, and budget for Premium once you pass ten aliases. The wrong choice is not any of these three. It is handing your one real address to every signup form and hoping none of them leak.
