I have created a “disguise” email address with “hide my email” on my iPad. Then, when I start a new email on the same iPad, my real email address still shows in the “from” line. No other choices.

muguy wrote:

Because you cannot send an email from a hide my email address. Hide my is for forms, registrations, etc.

Sorry - but this is, at least in part, an incorrect statement. Whilst a hide my email address can be used with site registrations to hide your true email address, you can also use the address to send and receive email.

Perhaps some explanation of how this service actually works will aid both your understanding and that of the OP - Sterkur.

While you cannot easily initiate an email conversation using a hide my email address, you can reply to an email received to your hidden address whilst preserving your privacy.

An email directed to your hide my email address is forwarded to your real email address by Apple - whether or not your true email address is an Apple domain address. The email will appear in the corresponding mailbox of your chosen email client with a mail-header that encodes information about the origin of the original email - and, crucially, the return path.

The email header information is specially contrived such that a reply that you send is initially directed to Apple’s Mail Gateway - where the return header information is decoded, reconstructed, and then the email is forwarded back to the original sender as a reply. The mail-header information received by the original sender appears to originate from your hide my email address at Apple - and not your real email address.

This mechanism allows you to reply to a received email that will appear in your real email address inbox - and preserve privacy.

Returning to the OPs question - essentially asking how to send an email using a hide my email address…

Reiterating an earlier point, you cannot easily initiate an email using the hide my email address - unless you have the skills to manually construct an encoded email address.

Perhaps the easiest way to use these addresses, for sending and receiving an email, is to give your hide my email address to the sender - asking them to initiate contact. You will receive an email to which you can reply - in so doing keeping your true email address private.

Because you cannot send an email from a hide my email address. Hide my is for forms, registrations, etc.

"Because you cannot send an email from a hide my email address. Hide my is for forms, registrations, etc"

That's kind of 'stupid', it misses the mark if I cannot reply to the owner of the form without giving out my email address in the reply. I tried to set up the hidden email address as an alias to be able to reply but the system (iCloud) didn't allow me to.

Hidden email address is a great idea which obviously hasn't been taken the whole way. Failure and lack of completion.

Updated - yes you can send and your real email shows on your sent box (which I've sent feedback we need some indicator we used HME for later on). But I sat and tested this with Apple engineers, and saw for myself the recepient gets your Hide My Email thru the private relay.

You are welcome.

Be aware that reply to the sender, using the encoded email address, is necessary. This will ensure that your reply-email is routed via the Apple Mail Gateway where the “magic” in translating email addresses will occur. If you reply directly to the sender, with their actual email address, your reply will be sent via your Mail Provider - and will bypass Apple’s hide my email system.

I don't have the background of your action. What I understand is that you cannot open up new communication from your mail client. It has do be done by the other person first sending you mail to your inbox.

Hidden email is meant for sending in requests online where you include your hidden email address and then you can reply normally from your mail client and Apple/iCloud will hide your actual email address in the process. That's how it worked for me.

Hopefully I'm not confusing in my reply. :-)

Thank you @LotusPilot for your long and complex explanation. Fortunately I'm not a complete novice so I was able to decipher most of it.

I just checked the email from the person responding to me and it is an iCloud.com email address with a a long string in front. So their email address is hidden as well even though it can be fished out of the long string.

In short; when I reply, I can see my own email address which is fine. When it goes through iCloud's email servers, Apple hides my real email address and I can rest assured my 'fake' address is shown to the recipient.

Good to know. Thank you for your time explaining it.

I found this vie google, because I searched for ways to reply to "hide my email" emails, and I always get an error "Cannot send message using the server iCloud". I tried to use mail on my MacBook, Mail on my iPhone and always get the same result. If I try to use the web interface of iCloud I can sent a response, but it will not get delivered, instead I get a "Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender" email from "Mail Delivery System <postmaster@icloud.com>"

See my reply to muguy above. Hopefully this will provide some useful and helpful clarity.

Wait for iOS/iPadOS 15.2. Assuming that the facility to do so is released as anticipated, you should be able to initiate (i.e., send) an email using the new hide my email addresses - directly from the Mail App.