Why You Should Have More Than 1 Email Address
Are you tired of being spammed by useless emails and email notifications? You’re not alone, according to CSOnline, “nearly 55% of UK email is spam”. You can read the full article here.
That is quite alarming, particularly as it’s getting more and more difficult to determine whether an email is genuine or not.
I may have a solution for you and it’s simpler than you think! It’s to simply have more than 1 email address. In fact, I recommend 4!
Whoa! 4 Email Addresses?
Yup, you’ve read that correctly, I recommend having 4! These addresses are all to be used for different things.
1. The Secure
The secure email account should be used for any type of sensitive accounts. For example, your bank account or HMRC.
You should not give this email address out to anyone else or for any other purposes other than the above. That way, a SPAM email will be easy to determine as you won’t expect to receive emails from anywhere else.
2. The Professional
The professional email account should be the one you use for employment purposes. This isn’t an email account provided by your workplace but a professional email account that you are happy to put on your CV.
Being a professional email address it should look the part too. For example, [email protected] is a professional-looking email address. I’ve chosen the Outlook domain for a reason. Many workplaces use the Office 365 Platform here in the UK. Having an Outlook email account will show that you know how to use the platform.
This email account should only be used for signing up for services and apps you are required to by your workplace if you don’t have an email account. It should also be used for putting on your CV as well as job sites.
3. The Personal
The personal email account should be the one you use for communicating with your friends and family as well as signing up for social media platforms.
This email account can be anything you want, it doesn’t have to be professional as you are not using it for professional services.
Once again, this email account should only be used for that reason, you shouldn’t use it for online shopping or signing to any other sites.
4. The Spam
The spam account should be used for everything else, whether it’s online shopping or signing up for newsletters.
This account should not be used for any of the above purposes.
So how does having more than one email address benefit me?
To begin with, if you receive an email from your bank on your personal email address, you’ll know that it’s very likely to be spam as you haven’t given your address to your bank. The same can be said for social media, if you receive an email from Facebook asking you to click their log-in link on your secure email account, you’ll know that that is a phishing email as you haven’t given them your secure email account.
It may be worth using different email providers!
Using different email providers may be a good idea because not only would it be easier for you to log in to the browser but it will also help you see the difference between the email account you are trying to access.
If you are stuck for choice, here are some email providers that you can use:
- Gmail
- Outlook
- AOL Mail
- Yahoo Mail
- Mail.com
- iCloud
Those are just six providers, but there are more! Whatever other service providers you decide to go with, you need to remember that these accounts will only be as secure as you make them. I highly recommend setting a different and secure password for each and enabling 2Factor Authentication where possible.
But I don’t want to have that many email addresses!
If you don’t want to have that many email addresses, I understand, after all, it does seem to be a hassle to be managing that many.
If that is the case then I recommend having only two. A professional one for use with your secure emails as well as other work-related emails and a personal email address for everything else. It’s not the best way forward, but it’s better than just having one.
Conclusion
As a whole, I recommend having four email accounts and using them in the manner I mentioned above. However, you have to have the discipline to use those email accounts strictly for the above reasons.
Overall, having more than one email account is a lot more secure compared to having just one as not only does it make it easier to spot spam emails, but you’re also giving away your most important email addresses a lot less, limiting the chance of getting targeted by spam and phishing emails.
It’s also worth considering which providers you choose as it can mean a huge difference. For your main and secure accounts, I would seriously recommend using reputable providers but when it comes to the others the smaller and less known providers should be perfectly fine.
How do you manage your emails? Do you only use one email account or do you use several? Let us know in the comments!