What is an email alias?

An email alias is simply an email address created and used to forward email addresses. It is not a real user account, nor does it correspond to a user account on an email server. It’s just a name that should be in the form of an email address, which is made up of a name and the “at” symbol, followed by a domain name. The word “pseudonym” means an assumed name and denotes a name or names by which a person or entity is also known. Some people think of an email alias as a virtual email address because, except that it doesn’t correspond to a real user account, it behaves in all other respects like a real email address.

Woman doing handstand with a computer

There are many good reasons to create an email alias and there are different ways to do it. Some real email addresses are very long and can be hard to remember. This is especially true in the case of an address provided by an employer, because a typical format for e-mail addresses is either the employee’s name followed by a point, followed by their nickname, or “at” symbol, or the company’s domain name. . If a person has a long name or one that is not easy to remember or type, they can use an email alias that is much easier to remember and with smaller characters than the real account.

Another reason a person might want to create an alias is to provide a generic email address that is made public. This is a common practice of many webmasters who often provide visitors to the websites they are responsible for with a way to contact them via email. Some companies also choose to use an email alias to which website visitors can send general questions or requests for general information. For example, the webmaster of a website can set up an email alias of “webmaster @” followed by the domain name, and general inquiries can be sent to “info @” followed by the domain name.

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A popular way to create an alias is to access the control panel, if any, of the company hosting the website. There is usually an email option that allows the creation of real user accounts, as well as the email alias from which the email is forwarded. When an email alias is created, a specific action, such as forwarding, must be associated with it, because it is not an actual separate account that can “hold” emails on the email server. An alias is useful for several reasons: it can have multiple recipients, it can help protect or hide the real user account, it doesn’t take up space on the mail server like a real user account, and it can be deleted without losing any mail you already have. been forwarded to a real address.

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