[gingerlime]

yes I run my own email server, but essentially forward to fastmail. I have a small script that generates a new forwarder. I add a note to remember what’s the purpose of the new email, and it also sends me an email with the note for quick lookup later on if necessary.

I think there are some services that lets you set up forwarders, and even some domain registrars will give you this for free or a small fee (although I guess the script part might be something you’ll have to figure out)

[quantumofalpha]

What's the benefit of running own server in this case? Wildcard aliases is actually a standard fastmail feature, I use it a lot. No per-email setup needed whatsoever, I just give out <whatever>@mydomain.com, they all will reach my inbox. Haven't seen people sending spam to random aliases at my domain yet.

[gingerlime]

can you bounce one of those aliases?

I have other reasons for having my own server (more mailboxes, domains, vendor lockin protection, own backups etc)

[quantumofalpha]

Yes, you can explicitly set up additional aliases that will bounce incoming mail (or redirect it). It's an option in "New Alias" screen - "Reject (bounce) all mail sent to this address (disable the alias)". While everything else not explicitly configured would get caught by the wildcard alias and delivered to the inbox you specified for it.

[gingerlime]

That’s good to know!