iCloud iCloud Mail Alias Mystery

[Buadhai]

I had given up on Facebook a few years ago, but slowly discovered that some businesses and services have no real online presence other than FB. So, I set up a new account using an iCloud Mail Alias that I created for the purpose. Although I don't recall, I'm sure that FB sent a verification email to that alias address. (This is before Apple established the "hide my email" process.

Fast forward to this week when I am away from home and try to log in to the web version of FB on my iPad. I enter that email alias and my password and FB wants to send a verification email. OK, fine.

But I never get the email from FB. So, I check iCloud Mail and discover that I no longer have that particular alias associated with my iCloud email account. Other aliases are there, just not that one.

So, I decided to send email to that address to see if I got it or if it were rejected or if it went through to someone else.

Sure enough, the email seems to have been delivered to somebody. Whoever it is, they did not respond.

So, I deleted that FB account and started over with one using Hide My Email.

Question is, what happened to that original alias. Does Apple purge email aliases that are not actually being used for email, or what?

 

[Bigwaff]

Question is, what happened to that original alias. Does Apple purge email aliases that are not actually being used for email, or what?

Not sure when it happened but you can only have three aliases.

 

[Buadhai]

Not sure when it happened but you can only have three aliases.

I just went to iCloud.com and see that I have four active aliases.

 

[Bigwaff]

I just went to iCloud.com and see that I have four active aliases.

Apple's iCloud docs state you can only create three email aliases.

Add and manage email aliases for iCloud Mail on iCloud.com

In Mail on iCloud.com, create email aliases to help keep your real email address private.

support.apple.com

You must have created your aliases way back when iCloud was the MobileMe service. If you delete one, you won't be able to create a fourth alias again. Three aliases is now the limit.

Question is, what happened to that original alias. Does Apple purge email aliases that are not actually being used for email, or what?

Would appear your alias did not make the transition from MobileMe to iCloud.

 

[Buadhai]

Would appear your alias did not make the transition from MobileMe to iCloud.

Apparently so. It would have been nice to have been notified in some way; especially since that alias now apparently belongs to someone else.

The four remaining aliases are all @iCloud.com

 

[Buadhai]

Now, this is getting interesting. I went for a deep dive into ancient history and found that my first documented use of the me.com alias was in 2008 to sign up for a local forum.

According to the Bitwarden Facebook entry, I used it to create a FaceBook account in June of 2022. So, I still had access to this alias as recently as two years ago. Long after the transition to iCloud.

So, something else going on, but we'll never find out what it is.