Checked my email aliases and found 47 old accounts I forgot about

I was cleaning up my inbox last Saturday and decided to look at all the email aliases I've made over the years. Turned out I had 47 accounts tied to random services from like 2016 to now. A bunch were old forum signups, free trials, and even a few dating sites I totally forgot about. The scary part was that at least 8 of those services had data breaches since I used them. My passwords back then were all the same weak ones too. I spent the afternoon deleting accounts and changing passwords on the ones I still use. Made me wonder how many old accounts you guys have floating around out there. Have any of you gone through and cleaned up old signups like this?

2 comments

2 Comments

jamiekim21d ago

Maybe it's just me but old accounts kinda become like digital ghosts you never think about.

the_abby21d ago

Actually those aren't email aliases. What you're describing is just different email addresses you signed up with. An email alias is a different thing where you have one main inbox but create extra addresses that all forward to it. Most email providers let you make aliases so you don't have to check separate accounts. I learned this the hard way when I told my friend about my "aliases" and he corrected me too.