Today, we will cover two areas:  1. How long are email addresses (by public email provider; i.e., Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail and AOL) maintained if they are left inactive by their owners?  and 2. Are there anonymous email addresses one can use, for whatever legitimate (I am sure)  reason s/he might need to do so?

When will your inactive public email provider account expire?

Yahoo

• If you don’t login to your Yahoo email account at least once in 4 months.

Gmail

• Your account remains inactive for nine months.

Hotmail

• Your account’s period of inactivity reaches nine months.

AOL

• Account expiry on inactivity: six months.

How To Obtain An Anonymous Email Address.

Why one would desire or need an anonymous email is a question with too many variables to answer comprehensively, and, it is not the focus of this post.  Our objective is to provide a resources for the legitimate use of temporary and anonymous email.  We’ve repeatedly tested and after five years, continue to use, Guerilla Mail.  From their site:

Many services and web apps require you to sign up with a valid email address, and they usually check that by sending a verification email to your specified address, which, in turn, might contain a link that you need to visit for the sign up process to complete. While this seems authentic on the service’s part, most users feel uncomfortable in doing so because of the resultant plethora of spam and promotional emails that bombard your inbox. Guerrilla Mail is a web app that can solve your problem by creating a temporary email address. You can use these to receive verification and configuration emails, validate your address and rest assured that none of your personal details will be compromised as the app will discard your email address after one hour (default setting).

Every time you visit the website, it will automatically assign a random, @sharklasers.com email address that you can use for one hour. The email address will automatically expire after 60 minutes, during which you can read all emails received on this address. The one-hour limit can easily be increased using the Extend button to add an extra hour.

Once you’re done with signing up or accessing any website content, all you need to do is use the Forget Me button to remove your temporary inbox completely from Guerrilla Mail.

Our Operatives: Street smart, tech savvy.

As always, be safe.

Most webmail users (i.e., nearly everyone with a pulse), at best, guess how long their dormant free email accounts are kept alive.   (It’s important to define “dormant” in the sense of webmail accounts.  Dormancy generally relates to login.  Most webmail hosts, e.g., Yahoo, Gmail, AOL…, will reset the “scheduled removal” of unread email at regular intervals.  This interval appears to reset if you simply login to your account,; you don’t have to necessarily read your mail.)

Mashable recently conducted a survey with the four major free webmail hosts, with the following responses to the question, “How long do webmail services keep an email account alive?”

Yahoo Mail – 4 months.

From Yahoo answers: “A Yahoo! account which hasn’t been logged in to over a 4 month period is called dormant account. Dormant accounts are de-activated at the end of four months.”

Gmail- 9 months.

“If you don’t log in to Gmail within three months of it being labeled dormant — or for nine consecutive months — GoogleGoogle reviews may delete the address.”

AOL Mail – 30 days.

“We reserve the right to cancel any free e-mail account that is inactive for more than 30 days, and any data on a deactivated account may not be retrieved later.”

Hotmail – 120 days.

“Free Windows Live Hotmail accounts become inactive if you don’t sign in for 120 days, or within the first 10 days after signing up for an account. After an account becomes inactive, all messages, folders, and contacts are deleted, but the account name is still reserved. If the account stays inactive for an additional 90 days, the account name may be permanently deleted. If you don’t use your Windows Live ID (The user name and password that you use to sign in to any Windows Live, MSN, or Office Live sites and services. If you have a Passport Network, Hotmail, or Messenger account, you can use it as your Windows Live ID.) for 365 days, your Windows Live ID may be permanently deleted.”

Mashable recently conducted a survey with the four major free webmail hosts, with the following responses to the question, “How long do webmail services keep an email account alive?”

Yahoo Mail – 4 months.

From Yahoo answers: “A Yahoo! account which hasn’t been logged in to over a 4 month period is called dormant account. Dormant accounts are de-activated at the end of four months.”

Gmail- 9 months.

“If you don’t log in to Gmail within three months of it being labeled dormant — or for nine consecutive months — GoogleGoogle reviews may delete the address.”

AOL Mail – 30 days.

“We reserve the right to cancel any free e-mail account that is inactive for more than 30 days, and any data on a deactivated account may not be retrieved later.”

Hotmail – 120 days.

“Free Windows Live Hotmail accounts become inactive if you don’t sign in for 120 days, or within the first 10 days after signing up for an account. After an account becomes inactive, all messages, folders, and contacts are deleted, but the account name is still reserved. If the account stays inactive for an additional 90 days, the account name may be permanently deleted. If you don’t use your Windows Live ID (The user name and password that you use to sign in to any Windows Live, MSN, or Office Live sites and services. If you have a Passport Network, Hotmail, or Messenger account, you can use it as your Windows Live ID.) for 365 days, your Windows Live ID may be permanently deleted.”

Tip:  Forward all of your email addresses to one email.  We do it here at BNI and have found it has reduced “lost” email to nearly zero.   Watch the brief tutorial below (or forward it to your IT/admin person.)  It’s worth the 60 seconds it takes to forward an email address.

BNI Operatives: Street smart; Web savvy.

Stay safe.

For this week’s poll, this NY Daily News headline says it all:  What A Twit! Twittering Juror May Cause $12.6m mistrial!  So we ask: