Brave browser support for email aliases, a built-in tool Chrome doesn’t appear to have. Starting with desktop version 1.94, Brave can create a throwaway address inside a sign-up form and pass whatever arrives there along to your real inbox. The website only ever sees the alias. Brave detailed the feature in a post dated August 27, 2026, and TechCrunch covered it the next day.
There are catches. You need a Brave Browser account, you get five free aliases, and there’s no mobile version yet.
What Brave Browser added
An email alias is a randomly generated address that forwards to a mailbox you already use. Brave Browser built the tool into its desktop browser, so there’s no extension to install and no separate alias service to join. Click an email field on a sign-up page and Brave offers to create an alias and fill it in. Anything the site sends goes to the alias first, then on to your real address.
How to create a Brave email alias
- Open brave://settings/email-aliases and choose to log in or create a Brave account.
- Enter your email and a strong password, then follow Brave’s prompts to verify the address.
- On any sign-up page, click into the email field. A suggestion to create a new alias should appear.
- If it doesn’t, right-click the field and choose “New Email Alias.”
- To review or delete aliases later, go to Settings > Autofill & Passwords > Email Aliases.
The Brave Browser account is separate from the Premium account used for services like the VPN. Brave says it relies on OPAQUE, a cryptographic protocol, so your password never reaches Brave’s servers.
Why Brave Browser built it
A shared email address gives companies something to match on. Google, Meta, and LinkedIn all document tools that let businesses upload customer emails and match them to accounts the platform already has. Picture signing up for a meal-kit service that advertises on Meta. The email marketing agency hands over your address, Meta finds the Facebook account registered under it, and the purchase gets tied to your profile.
Brave Browser points out that this exchange happens between company servers, so blocking trackers in the browser can’t stop it. An alias closes that gap by giving each site a different address to match against.
Breaches are the other worry. If a site you joined gets hacked, the address it held can end up with data brokers and keep showing up in phishing attempts for years. With an alias, the leak contains a disposable address instead of your main one, and you can switch it off and create a replacement.
What Brave Browser says it does with forwarded mail
Brave Browser says it doesn’t read the content of messages sent to an alias. It scans them for spam and viruses, then removes its copy within seconds of delivery. If your mailbox rejects a message temporarily, such as when it’s full, Brave’s help page says it retries for up to 24 hours before deleting it.
Brave does keep your account email and your list of aliases, encrypted at rest. It has to, or forwarding wouldn’t work. That means the protection is aimed at the websites you sign up with, while Brave itself knows which alias points to which address.
Notes you attach to an alias, like which site it belongs to, stay on your device. With Brave Sync on, they’re end-to-end encrypted between your devices.
Does Brave Browser Support for Email Aliases really one-up Chrome?
The headline claim rests on Chrome lacking a built-in alias generator, and we couldn’t find one in Chrome. Google has been reported since late 2024 to be working on a similar Android autofill feature called Shielded Email, based on code spotted in Google Play Services. An ExpressVPN explainer from March 2026 said it still hadn’t launched, and we found no launch announcement.
Other browsers and platforms aren’t empty-handed. Apple offers Hide My Email, but only to iCloud+ subscribers. Standalone services such as SimpleLogin and Firefox Relay do the same job as separate products.
Brave’s edge is convenience, since the tool lives where you fill out the form. The trade-off is that it helps only if you use Brave on desktop.
Limits to know before you switch
- Desktop only for now, since Brave says mobile is still in the works.
- Five free aliases. Brave plans a Premium version later but hasn’t announced a price or a higher cap.
- Forwarded mail may land in spam while Brave builds a sending reputation. Marking messages as “not spam” helps later ones arrive normally.
- Aliases won’t work without a Brave login.
FAQs
Does Chrome have built-in email aliases?
We couldn’t find a built-in alias generator in Chrome. Google has been reported to be working on Shielded Email for Android, but an ExpressVPN explainer from March 2026 said it hadn’t launched.
Are Brave email aliases free?
Yes, five of them at launch. A Premium version is planned.
Which Brave version has email aliases?
Desktop version 1.94, released at the end of August 2026.
Do I need a Brave account?
Yes. The email address on that account is where aliases forward.
Can Brave read my forwarded emails?
Brave says it doesn’t read message content. It scans for spam and viruses, then deletes its copy after delivery.
