A long long time ago, we wrote about a website for sending fake anonymous emails, but the website featured in that post seems to have shut down some time back.

Today we’re featuring another website that lets you send fake, anonymous emails for free.

For our purpose, a fake or anonymous email is one which can be sent to a destination showing any senders email address. Sending a fake email can be a very good way to play an online prank or even to protect your own privacy when you do not want to disclose your email address.

Emkei is a free web service that lets you send fake and completely anonymous emails. What differentiates this website from other similar sites besides its free service is that there are no advertisements attached with the emails sent. However, one piece of advice before you use the service: You might want to check your local law as sending fake emails might be an offence in your country and you are not allowed to use the service for any illegal activity. Please do not use the service unless it is meant as a friendly and harmless prank.

Sending a Fake Email

Sending an email from the website is pretty easy and straightforward. Visiting the site shows you a form on the home page. Use any “fake name” and “fake email address” in the “From Name” and “From Email” fields in the form.

The “To” field should contain the destination email address to which you want to send the email. The “Reply-To” field can be used to give the address at which you wish to receive the reply from the recipient. However, I recommend leaving this field blank as it can be seen by the recipient and hence, he can determine that the email is not genuine.

If you wish to send an email to multiple recipients then use the “BCC” field in the form.

You can also send attachments and set a priority for the email. The “Date” field will let to specify the time and date at which you want to deliver the email. Plain text as well as HTML content is allowed in the email. Various basic formatting options such as Bold Text, Italics, Lists, Superscript, Subscript etc are also available to make the email look genuine.

Once you are done entering the details, fill in the Captcha text and click on the “Send” button. Your email will be delivered as per the date and time selected. Below is an example of such a fake TEST email that I sent myself.

Detecting A Fake Email

So, now that you know it is possible to send fake emails, you must be wondering if it’s actually possible to make sure than an email that you receive is actually genuine ?

Almost all email services give the users a detailed view of the emails received. This option is given as “Show Original” in Gmail, “View Full Header” in Yahoo and “View Message Source” in Hotmail or MSN Live. Selecting the option will show you a page that gives all the details of the email. Check out the “Received” field in this page. If it contains the name of the site as “Emkei.cz” then you can be sure that the mail is sent from this website and is thus a hoax. If there is any other name you are not sure of then the best way is to search for name online and check its authenticity.

Visit Emkei to start sending fake emails.

Looking at the received field is just one of the ways to make sure if an email is genuine. Do you know of any other method ? Please let us know in the comments.

Gourav: Gourav Mittal is a Computer Science Engineer who loves to blog in his free time. He blogs primarily at Techrav and also maintains Sanjay Tea Company