All changes

The masked email relay is built, and off by default

octapass-relay is a new, separate service that gives a server its own masked email: random aliases that forward to the account’s verified email, with replies going back out through the alias. See the masked email relay.

  • No queue. A message is forwarded while the sender is still connected, and accepted only once the outgoing provider has taken it. Messages never reach a disk or a log.
  • The real address stays private both ways. Replies are rebuilt from a short list of headers, and bounces are counted, never passed on.
  • Abuse handling. SPF, DKIM, DMARC and ARC checks, rate limits, per-alias blocks, and automatic pauses after bounces or spam reports, with one email saying so.

It is off by default, and the hosted service doesn’t run it. It’s been tested with real SMTP on one machine, but not yet with real DNS, a real mail provider or a real inbox. Running it publicly needs decisions on the domain, the provider and abuse handling first.

Your vault isn’t affected. Email isn’t end-to-end encrypted, though, so on a server with the relay, mail is readable by the relay while it’s forwarded, and it keeps the addresses of people who wrote to your aliases. What the server sees has the details.