Apple Keeps Hide My Email on iCloud After Privacy Backlash
Apple keeps Hide My Email aliases on @icloud.com after user and staff objections, preserving sign-up privacy as a past address leak shadows the service.
Summary
Apple confirmed Monday that Hide My Email addresses will remain on @icloud.com, reversing an earlier 2026 plan to move them to @private.icloud.com. The reversal became public August 25, 2026, after users on social media and Reddit warned websites could identify and reject the new domain during registration. Available to paying iCloud+ subscribers, Hide My Email creates unique, disposable aliases that forward messages to users’ normal inboxes and resemble regular @icloud.com addresses.
Apple gave no reason for reversing course. John Gruber, who first disclosed the change, said Apple employees had opposed the planned migration throughout. The service still allows Apple to identify a masked address holder to law enforcement. A separate bug exposed users’ real addresses when messages were rejected as spam, and Apple fixed it more than a year after first being notified.
Positives
- Hide My Email addresses will remain on @icloud.com following Apple’s Monday reversal.
- Paying iCloud+ users retain disposable aliases that forward messages without exposing their normal inbox addresses.
- Existing aliases remain indistinguishable from regular @icloud.com addresses, limiting websites’ ability to block them during registration.
- Apple fixed the bug that exposed real addresses when forwarded messages were rejected as spam.
Risks & concerns
- Apple’s abandoned @private.icloud.com plan could have enabled websites to identify and reject Hide My Email aliases.
- Apple can still identify the person behind a masked address when responding to law enforcement.
- The real-address exposure bug remained unresolved for more than a year after Apple was notified.
- Apple gave no reason for reversing its planned domain migration.
