The History of Disposable Email

The first disposable email service launched in 2000. A developer named Josh built Spamgourmet — you created addresses like [email protected], where the 3 meant "accept three emails then stop forwarding." The counter was baked into the address itself. No web UI needed. Josh maintained it until he died of brain cancer in 2020. His son Josiah runs it now. Twenty-six years later, AI agents are creating their own email inboxes without human intervention. The throughline between these two things is shorter than you'd think. Era 1: Anti-Spam (2000-2010) By the late 1990s, every website wanted your email to register. Every registration meant more spam. The CAN-SPAM Act wouldn't arrive until 2003. People needed a way to give out email addresses that worked but didn't matter. Mailinator (2003) defined the category. Paul Tyma, a Google engineer, got the idea from his drunk roommate. The first version took three days to code. The concept: any email sent to [email protected]