Ask HN: How to proxify emails?

[whoshallsucceed]

I'm running a store platform for which buyers coordinates are sensitive. In order to prevent sellers to store the buyers coordinates to be independent, I am looking for ways to alias phone numbers and emails.

So far, I've found Twilio which seems great for SMS and Call with Virtual Phone Numbers.

But I can't find a similar way for emails. Is there any I missed?

[TobyGiacometti]

For email forwarding, you can have a look at https://github.com/danisola/forward-cat. However, I do not know if this would work for your setup. On top of that, I do not think it handles replies to the email alias, but I am not sure.

What could work is to just use an internal system for messaging, so that each of your users has a private inbox in your store platform. Kind of like direct messaging in a forum...

[whoshallsucceed]

Thanks for following up but they lack an API which is mandatory for my needs.

[tretiy3]

you can use mailgun for that. it has an api and concepts of "routes". you will be able to intercept email from seller@seller_domain.com to buyer@your_domain.com, handle it in your app (mailgun will POST to your web app), and then send from seller@your_domain.com to buyer@buyer_domain.com. really transparent. you can tweak any part of the workflow. have all conversations and all stats in your app.

[whoshallsucceed]

Yes, I found out after a while. I ended up doing just that. Last thing to figure out is how to send the mail as is, meaning for now I pick the HMTL part and send it setting the content type. But this way lacks the Text version of the email.

I'll keep digging up.

Thanks for following up!