Apple provides a hidden email service in iOS to help users generate random email addresses to register for various services and hide their real email addresses. This feature is very useful because there is no need to expose your real email address to websites and applications to avoid receiving endless harassing emails.
Now Google is also developing similar functions. The code shows that an option called ShieldedEmail has appeared in GooglePlayServicev24.45.33, and AndroidAutuority can already enable this function.
Google's Mail Shield service can currently be used with the Google Gboard keyboard. When you need to register an account and provide an email, Gboard will pop up the option to generate a random email.
Accounts registered with random emails will also need to use that email to log in later, so this also needs to be used with a password manager or Google login service so that users do not need to remember these random emails.
The principle behind the scenes is also relatively simple. After the random email is bound to the user's Google account, all subsequent emails received in that mailbox will be forwarded to Gmail. According to normal logic, Google will definitely allow users to directly deactivate these random mailboxes to avoid harassment, but there is no such option yet.
Initially, the Firefox browser took the lead in providing a feature called FirefoxRelay to help users hide their real email addresses. This service is charged through subscription. I don’t know if Google will also provide paid subscription services for Shielded Email in the future.
In addition, considering the actual use, it is estimated that this function can be used without relying on Google Gboard in the future, and combined with the password manager for automatic filling, it should be very convenient to use.