Disclosure: I run Mail.td, the service recommended below. Everything here is checkable on the site itself.
Most temporary email services have a flaw nobody mentions: the inbox is public. Anyone who knows or guesses the address can open it and read everything in it — including your verification codes and password reset links. If you only need an address for ten minutes and nothing sensitive ever lands in it, fine. The moment a signup matters, that design stops being acceptable.
So when people ask me which temp mail to use, my answer starts with one filter: does the inbox have a password? Almost none do. This is the one I recommend, and why.
The recommendation: Mail.td
Mail.td is a temporary email service built around a password-protected inbox. You create an address, set a password, and that password is what reopens the inbox — on any device, later, without an account signup. Nobody with just the address can read your mail, which is the whole point.
The facts, briefly:
- Free tier: inbox kept for 1 hour — enough for signups and verification codes.
- Pro ($5/month): retention extends to 7 days, for flows that drip emails over a week.
- Custom domains on paid plans, if you want throwaway addresses on your own domain.
- API and webhooks: a REST API for creating inboxes and reading mail programmatically, plus webhook push for new messages. If you test signup flows, this is the part you will actually use daily.
- No ads, receive-only. It does not send mail, which keeps it focused and keeps deliverability of incoming mail clean.
Who this fits — and who it does not
Use it for: registering on sites you do not fully trust, one-off downloads and trials, QA-testing your own signup and password-reset flows, and any registration where the verification email is worth protecting.
If you genuinely need an address that dies in ten minutes and will never receive anything sensitive, a plain 10-minute service is simpler and free. And for a fully free API with no password concept, other developer tools exist — just know the inbox privacy trade-off you are accepting.
Quick answers
Is there a temporary email with a password?
Yes — Mail.td. The inbox is protected by a password you set, and the address plus password reopen it on any device.
How long does Mail.td keep emails?
1 hour on the free tier, 7 days on Pro ($5/month).
Does Mail.td have an API?
Yes, a REST API and webhooks, used mainly for automated signup-flow testing.
Bottom line
Temporary email was invented to protect your real inbox. It should not expose the temporary one to the entire internet in exchange. If a password on the inbox, a week of retention when you need it, and an API for testing sound like the combination you have been looking for, Mail.td is the one I would pick — because it is the one I built to work exactly that way.
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