Introduced in iOS 15, Hide My Email remains an underutilized iCloud+ feature.
The tool allows users to generate unique, disposable email addresses for every service they sign up for, which can be disabled at will. This prevents advertisers from capturing a user's primary address and offers greater inbox control.
Despite being available for five years, the feature has not seen significant progression. The following are key areas identified for improvement.
Accessibility
Hide My Email is largely confined to the Settings app. While apps can expose a "Hide My Email" option from the keyboard to generate a new address, this integration works reliably in Safari and some system apps, but it is not universal. On macOS, the feature's reach is even more limited.
While Hide My Email may not warrant its own app, integrating it into the Passwords app would provide easier access. This would allow users to create emails in places that do not natively support the keyboard integration.
Chrome Support
Apple's iCloud Passwords extension for Chrome has evolved, now supporting passkeys, iCloud 2FA codes, and autofill from Messages. It would be a natural progression for the Chrome extension to also allow generating new Hide My Email addresses in any email field, matching the functionality available in Safari.
Custom Email Domains
Currently, every Hide My Email address ends with @icloud.com. Apple already allows custom domains with iCloud Mail, opening the possibility of creating aliases using a user's own domain. While this could reduce some privacy aspects, it would still allow users to cut off senders from their inbox while using a preferred domain, offering a significant quality-of-life improvement.