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Apple has reversed a planned change to its iCloud+ Hide My Email feature and will keep masked addresses on the @icloud.com domain instead of moving them to @private.icloud.com. The company changed course after users warned that the new domain would make disposable aliases easier for websites and apps to identify and potentially block during account creation, weakening one of the feature’s core privacy benefits. Apple said it made the decision after reviewing community feedback.
The reversal applies to Hide My Email aliases, which generate disposable forwarding addresses for iCloud+ users, but Apple still plans to migrate Sign in with Apple relay addresses from @privaterelay.appleid.com to @private.icloud.com later in 2026. Developers have been told to allow the new domain, while older relay addresses will continue forwarding without interruption. Reporting also noted that although Hide My Email obscures a user’s real address from services, Apple can still identify the account behind an alias for law-enforcement requests, and the feature previously faced scrutiny over a bug that exposed real email addresses in some spam-rejection scenarios before Apple fixed it.
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In June, Apple said it would unify the domains used by Sign in with Apple and Hide My Email under private.icloud.com, which would have moved Hide My Email aliases away from icloud.com.
Apple told developers whose apps or websites use Sign in with Apple to allow the private.icloud.com domain alongside privaterelay.appleid.com ahead of the relay-domain migration.
After user backlash and privacy concerns, Apple reversed its planned change to the Hide My Email feature and said aliases will continue using the icloud.com domain instead of private.icloud.com.
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Apple said new anonymous relay addresses created through **iCloud+ Hide My Email** and **Sign in with Apple** will use the shared domain `private.icloud.com`, replacing the current split between `privaterelay.appleid.com` and `icloud.com` for newly generated addresses. The company said the change will roll out later this summer, while existing relay addresses on the legacy domains will continue to function without interruption. Apple told developers, app operators, and email service providers to update validation logic, allowlists, filtering, suppression lists, and routing rules so messages sent to `private.icloud.com` are accepted alongside the older domains. The change has drawn criticism from some users, who argue that a distinct relay domain could make Hide My Email addresses easier for websites and apps to detect and potentially block, weakening the privacy feature’s usefulness for anonymous sign-ups.
Jun 29, 2026
A reported vulnerability in Apple’s iCloud+ **Hide My Email** service allows an attacker with only a relay alias to uncover the user’s real email address, defeating a privacy feature widely used to mask identity. Researcher **Tyler Murphy** of EasyOptOuts said he disclosed the issue to Apple in June 2025, and multiple outlets reported that **404 Media** independently verified the flaw by recovering a reporter’s actual Apple ID email from a newly created alias. Public reporting says the issue requires no account compromise, special access, or social engineering, raising risks of phishing, spam correlation, account linkage, and exposure of personal details through people-search services. Apple reportedly acknowledged the bug in 2025 and later told Murphy that a system change had addressed it, but follow-up testing found the deanonymization still worked more than a year after disclosure. Murphy said volunteer testing showed all tested aliases were reversible, though the full scope across the user base remains unclear, and exact exploitation details were withheld while Apple continued investigating. As of the reports, Apple had not issued a public advisory or CVE, and separate coverage noted that Apple’s planned migration of masked addresses to the `@private.icloud.com` domain could make Hide My Email aliases easier for websites and apps to identify and block.
Jul 9, 2026
Apple is facing a proposed class action lawsuit alleging that its **Hide My Email** feature exposed users’ real email addresses to websites and apps despite being marketed as a privacy protection. The complaint says the flaw allowed aliases generated through iCloud+ to be linked back to a user’s actual address, potentially defeating the purpose of the service and raising claims under California false advertising and consumer protection laws. According to the filings, a security researcher reported the issue to Apple in June 2025, Apple acknowledged it the following month, later said in March that it had addressed the problem, and then indicated in May that a patch would be released within weeks, but the lawsuit alleges the vulnerability remained unresolved. The suit seeks compensation for iCloud+ subscribers and other users who paid for privacy protections that allegedly did not work as advertised, while reports say there are **no known cases of active exploitation** and technical reproduction details have not been publicly disclosed.
Jul 18, 2026