[drpossum]

You post this like there's no use case for an address that just forwards to an address or reply to emails sent to you. Apple is in fact clear that is what it does in the description. https://support.apple.com/en-us/105078

> Hide My Email generates unique, random email addresses that automatically forward to your personal inbox. Each address is unique to you. You can read and respond directly to emails sent to these addresses and your personal email address is kept private.

Nothing there suggests you can generate new email threads from an address, just "respond directly". While that may not meet your needs, it does meet the needs of other use cases for which it was designed (e.g. signing up for a service you don't want to provide your true email address for). That's absolutely no reason to call for a blanket "stop using it".

[rvalue]

Have I not made my case with sufficient explanation?

[drpossum]

No, because you didn't invalidate the cases for which it is used. People should continue using the feature if it meets their needs.

You also didn't address spam and security issues if someone is able to endlessly produce anonymous email addresses and send unprompted emails. This is almost certainly why Apple wouldn't implement this feature as you want.

[rvalue]

Ignoring all your distractions and deflections aside, you don't call a car a car if it refuses to let you drive it. You try to find the clutch, its not there, there is not gear box, no accelerator, no brakes and you are on the seat and yell how the hell do I drive this thing?

And the thing talks back to you, hello Bob, please tell me where do you want to go?

Now you are not mad at it. You will happily tell it to take you to the nearest AMC to catch your film. Because its a robotic, self driving car. No car salesman is selling you a futuristic self driving car by calling it a car.

Apple clearly sold this feature by saying its creating a unique email addresses for every use. Email addresses allow you to send and receive emails. You can't do that, you don't call it that, you call it something else. Simple.

[lesserknowndan]

I would say yes you have.

Seeing as most transactional email from businesses is sent from a no-reply address, it would seem this is a huge oversight to not allow someway for you to email the business using that email alias.

One question though - does it allow you to respond to a previous email and add a new email address in the "to" field?

Also, I don't understand why people would disagree with you pointing this out... Are they the Apple developer who developed it and are butt-hurt that someone is pointing out a flaw? Are they an Apple investor and can't stand the idea of any negative Apple press hurting Apple's share price?

Surely it is better if any flaws in software are pointed out so that they can be addressed.

[rvalue]

So if I understand you correctly, say [e-mail] has sent me an email at [e-mail], can I reply to this chain by adding another email in the To address, say, [e-mail]

There are limitations to sending email itself when using HME. You need to be using an iCloud Mail account only (i.e. email with @icloud.com). This is like saying if you want to be using HME, abandon your current mail provider and come into the Apple ecosystem.

Even after doing that, if you try to add another recipient, it complains that HME can be used only with 1 recipient. I tested this out on icloud.com/mail

Another case is lets say if we don't have forwarding email set to an @icloud.com email, which is the normal usecase everybody probably uses this feature. Their primary email address is either Gmail or Hotmail or whatever. In this, if i set another recipient, the mail contents will probably reach [e-mail] but I am not sure if it will reach [e-mail] because the iCloud MAILER would probably complain the same 1 recipient thing and cause email failure.

Just look at all this complexity & for what? I assume you asked this like a hack to get it working. Even if the email worked, now I have to convince business.com that I am the same user that you have registered as [e-mail]. What business out there is going to entertain such kind of thing?

[lesserknowndan]

I was just wondering about the following scenario: 1. I signup with example.com using '[e-mail]' 2. I get an activation email sent to this alias from '[e-mail]' 3. Sometime later I need to contact them so I create a reply to (2) and remove the address 'noreply' addresss and add '[e-mail]' which I know is a valid support email.

Would example.com get that email?

[rvalue]

No idea.

[drpossum]

The disagreement is this post is calling for people to stop using it entirely, even if it serves a specific purpose and works for that purpose. The author claims because it does not cover their particular needs people should stop using it.