The 5 Best Sites to Prank Your Friends With Fake Email Messages
4 min read
If you want to send fake emails to prank your friends and family, there are a few online services worth exploring. They each have slightly different features and use cases, and some will generate a fake email address for you, while others help you actually help you put together an artful letter.
These days, major email services have more stringent Sender Policy Framework (SPF) policies in place to verify a sender’s legitimacy. Because of this, some anonymous emails might get rejected due to their unknown email addresses.
Send Anonymous Email is a web app that lets you send emails while hiding the true sender. The site claims to have sent over 10 million anonymous emails successfully. Whether or not that figure is true, the platform does its job effectively and efficiently.
In terms of features, Send Anonymous Email has a pretty decent text editor. You can add text, embed images, edit source code, and adjust styles and formatting. That said, you cannot change the color and font of the text.
The website also hides some features behind a premium paywall, such as customizing the sender’s address. Without a subscription, recipients will see an email from “Anonymousemail” and the platform’s standard email address.
So, the recipient will know the email is coming from a generator, but at least they won’t necessarily know it’s you. Plus, because this is a legitimate email address, a SPF filter won’t block the message. However, if you want to define the sender’s address, you can pay $59 for an annual subscription. As a premium user, you can also add attachments and track email impressions.
It’s worth noting that Send Anonymous Email takes a serious stance on the abuse of its services. In the company’s terms, legal action could be taken if you exploit the site for threats or harassment of others, misrepresenting an organization, or other fraudulent activities.
Emkei’s Mailer might have a bare-bones text editor, but this site offers a full range of customizations for sending messages. You can choose the From Name, From Email, To, Subject, and Message.
The other significant difference between Send Anonymous Email and Emkei’s Mailer is the support for attachments, with up to 25MB supported.
Emkei’s Mailer hosts a plain text editor and an HTML editor for composing your message. As such, the app is simple for a quick one-liner but can also be deployed when you want to make a fake email message look more convincing.
The downside to Emkei’s Mailer is that your emails might not always reach your desired recipient. Because Emkei’s Mailer sends messages from unknown email addresses that you create, some email services may reject them due to their SPF policies.
Anonymouse is another site that allows you to send an email from a fake address. With its AnonEmail service, the site generates a random fake email address for you, which you can use to send your prank email.
To increase anonymity, Anonymouse randomly delays your sent email for up to 12 hours. This way, you can send a fake email to your friend in the same room, and your target prank victim won’t immediately suspect you when they receive the email much later.
As with Emkei’s Mailer, there is a risk of Anonymouse emails getting rejected due to them containing fake addresses. Moreover, it will take up to 12 hours to find out whether your note went through.
ZMail provides a unique way to play email pranks. It is the only service on this list that works by way of a desktop app rather than a web app. But you don’t need to fret about viruses and malware. ZMail is open source, meaning anyone can check out the code to make sure it’s safe.
That being said, there are limitations here. The app is only available on Windows, so Mac users will have to stick to one of the web apps listed. Alternatively, iPhone users can look up dedicated iPhone apps to prank friends via the App Store.
Unlike the others on this list, Letter Generator will not actually send anything for you, but it supports another integral step in the prank process—figuring out what you’re going to say. You can use it to generate a compelling letter using topics and keywords of your choosing.
The site is perfect when you’re not sure what to write in your prank email. Pair this app with one of the email services above, and you’ve got a winning prank on your hands.
The generator’s categories include love letters, landlord notices, and even templates for writing to your local politicians. Letter Generator is entirely free to use, and there are no restrictions on the number of letters you can generate.
If you’re a fan of this type of generator, which puts the pieces together for you, these
popular prank-call websites
might also suit your fancy.
It’s important to be responsible when sending anonymous emails. Services that let you send fake emails can easily be abused. Pretending to be someone you’re not in cyberspace carries ethical and moral questions you should consider when using these platforms, even if the intention is innocent. Depending on the content of your message (and the actions the recipients take in light of it), there could even be legal consequences.
Fake emails can provide fun among family and friends as long as you proceed with caution. Of course, don’t send prank emails that could cause alarm, sadness, or panic. And it goes without saying that you shouldn’t impersonate the police or other emergency services. If you’re anxious about faux emails, you can always pull out one of these geeky prank sites to fool your friends the next time you’re hanging out.
