What are disposable email addresses (DEAs)?
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You're signing up for something and you don't want to give your real email. So you head to a site like Mailinator, generate a temporary inbox, and use that instead. That temporary inbox is a disposable email address (DEA). You get it, you use it once, it expires and disappears.
DEAs are a problem for your sending metrics. When you mail someone at a disposable address, they're likely signing up just to download a freebie or try your product with zero commitment. They don't care about your emails. Open rates tank, bounce rates spike when the address expires, and mailbox providers watch. If you're sending to a lot of DEAs, they notice your list quality is low.
Common DEA services include 10 Minute Mail, Guerrilla Mail, Temp Mail, and similar throwaway services. Most generate addresses that expire in minutes or hours. Some ESPs flag them automatically during validation, but if you're doing signups on your own form, you need to catch them before they hit your list.
Your best defense is double opt-in. Ask the subscriber to confirm from their real email. You can also validate emails at signup using tools that check for known disposable domains. If you've already got DEAs in your list, clean them out before your next send. Our free blocklist checker can help identify them.
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