How does a one-hour temporary email work?
Updated 1 November 2026.
1hemail gives you a receive-only email address for a short task, with an initial 60-minute lifetime and access protected by a separate token.
From address creation to your first message
Open the inbox workspace and let the human check finish. Your browser requests an address, and the server sets its expiration. Copy the full address into a form where disposable email is permitted. The sender must actually send a message to that address before anything can appear in your inbox. A successful form submission alone does not prove that mail was sent.
What the five-second refresh means
While the page is open, it checks for new messages every five seconds. This is a polling interval, not a delivery guarantee: the sender can queue mail, reject the domain or apply its own filters. The receiving server must also process a message before the page can display it. If a code is missing, follow the delivery checklist rather than repeatedly creating addresses.
The address and the access token do different jobs
The email address tells a sender where to deliver mail. The private token authorises your browser to read that inbox. Knowing the email address alone is not enough to open it. Your browser stores the token locally, so an ordinary reload can reopen the same active inbox. Clearing browser storage, switching browser profiles or using a different device does not automatically transfer access.
What you can do with received mail
Open a message, read plain text or a filtered formatted version, copy detected numeric codes and download supported attachments. The viewer blocks remote images by default. You can save text or the original .eml message before expiry. The service currently does not send, reply to or forward email. It also does not provide a supported public API for automated QA.
What the timer does not do
Reloading, receiving mail and leaving the page open do not reset the original timer. One paid extension adds another hour, once per inbox. After expiration, inbox access stops and automatic cleanup follows. For future recovery, renewals or important accounts, use a lasting mailbox. See when an email alias is more appropriate.