Updated · Volt Ghost team
Disclosure: we run Volt Ghost. Every Mailinator detail below comes from mailinator.com, its FAQ and its pricing page as published on 22 October 2026. Mailinator updates its plans often; if anything below no longer matches its site, let us know and we'll correct the page.
At a glance
This table compares Mailinator's free public system (addresses ending in @mailinator.com) with Volt Ghost. Mailinator's paid plans work differently and are covered further down.
| Mailinator (free, public) | Volt Ghost | |
|---|---|---|
| Who can read your mail | Anyone. Its FAQ says all public emails can be read by anyone and you shouldn't expect privacy | Only someone with your inbox open or your recovery link |
| Getting an address | Make one up: every address @mailinator.com already exists | Generated for you, as a realistic name or a random string |
| How long mail lasts | "Several hours", then deleted for good | 24 hours, with one free extension to 3 or 7 days |
| Attachments | Not allowed on the public system | Not supported (message text is shown) |
| Sending | No, receive-only | No, receive-only |
| Reopen on another device | Yes, by typing the same inbox name, which anyone else can do too | Yes, with a private recovery link, until the inbox expires |
| Sign-up to use it | Not for public inboxes | Never |
| Price | Free; paid testing plans from $79 a month | Free |
Where Mailinator is the better pick
- You're testing your own app. Mailinator's paid plans are built for developers and QA teams: private test domains, SMS testing, webhooks and team seats. Volt Ghost isn't a testing platform.
- You need an address without opening a website first. Because every @mailinator.com address already exists, you can type any name into a form and check it later.
- You want mail kept long-term. Its paid plans offer permanent storage until you delete it or fill your quota. Volt Ghost deletes everything when the inbox expires.
Where Volt Ghost is the better pick
- The email contains a code or a login link. On public Mailinator, anyone who guesses or reuses the same inbox name can read it. A Volt Ghost inbox is only visible to you and whoever has your recovery link.
- The mail might take a while. Mailinator's public mail lasts a few hours. Ours lasts a day, and up to a week once extended.
- The site rejects well-known throwaway domains. mailinator.com is one of the most widely known disposable domains. Our addresses use our own domains and read like a person's name by default. No service gets past a site that blocks every disposable domain, though.
Privacy, briefly
Mailinator's FAQ says its public site keeps no logs of website access and doesn't store identifying information such as your IP address, while warning that the mail itself is public. Volt Ghost takes the opposite approach: the inbox is private, and its messages sit in our database only until it expires. Your recovery link is the key to it, so don't post or share it. More on the privacy page.
Which one should you use?
For a newsletter or a download link you don't care about, public Mailinator is quick and works fine. For anything with a verification code, a password reset or personal details in it, use a private inbox like Volt Ghost. Banking, work or anything you'll need to log back into belongs on your real address, as explained in when not to use temp mail.
How we checked
We opened mailinator.com, its FAQ and its pricing page on 22 October 2026 and recorded what they state about privacy, storage time, attachments, sending and plans. Delivery speed and reliability weren't tested, so this page says nothing about them. Our own column reflects the current product (see about Volt Ghost).