What Is an Email Alias? Alias vs Catch-All vs Shared Mailbox (2026)

What Is an Email Alias? Alias vs Catch-All vs Shared Mailbox

TL;DR: An email alias is an extra address, like sales@ or hello@, that delivers into a mailbox you already have. It has no password and no storage of its own, so it usually costs nothing. A catch-all collects mail sent to any address on your domain, including typos and addresses that never existed, which makes it a spam magnet. A shared mailbox is one real inbox that several people work from. Most small businesses need a few mailboxes for real people and aliases for everything else.

Every business ends up with more email addresses than people. info@ for the website, sales@ for inquiries, billing@ for invoices, a personal address for each person on the team.

The mistake is assuming every one of those addresses needs its own inbox, its own login and its own monthly fee. Most of them don't. Knowing the difference between an alias, a catch-all and a shared mailbox is how you get the addresses you need without paying for inboxes nobody reads.

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Alias, catch-all, shared mailbox and group compared

The simple rule: if a person needs to log in and read mail at that address, it's a mailbox. If the mail just needs to land somewhere someone already checks, it's an alias.

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What is an email alias?

An email alias is a second address that points at an existing mailbox. Mail sent to the alias arrives in that mailbox exactly as if it had been sent there directly.

Say Priya runs a small design studio and her real mailbox is priya@studio.com. She adds three aliases:

• hello@studio.com, for the website contact form
• invoices@studio.com, for supplier bills
• press@studio.com, for the occasional journalist

All three land in Priya's one inbox. She has one login, one place to read mail, and four public addresses. When she hires someone to handle invoices, she can point invoices@ at that person instead, and every supplier keeps using the same address.

That is the real value of an alias: the address belongs to a job, not a person. People come and go, and the address stays.

Can you reply from an alias?

It depends on the provider. Some let you choose the alias as your From address when you reply. Others, including MailAfiniti, deliver mail to the alias but send replies from the mailbox itself. If you need to send as support@ every day, make support@ a mailbox and add it to your mail app as a second account.

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What is a catch-all address?

A catch-all collects mail sent to any address on your domain that doesn't otherwise exist. Send something to jonh@studio.com instead of john@, or to an employee who left two years ago, and a catch-all quietly delivers it somewhere instead of bouncing it.

That sounds useful, and it occasionally is. But it has real costs:

• It attracts spam. Spammers send to guessed addresses (admin@, sales1@, random strings) on the off chance they exist. With a catch-all, every guess lands in your inbox.
• Senders never learn they got it wrong. Without a bounce, the person who mistyped your address assumes you received it and ignored them.
• It hides real problems. A misspelled address on an invoice template or a form can go unnoticed for months.
• It can make your domain look risky. Email verification tools can't confirm which addresses on a catch-all domain are real, so lists often mark them as "unknown" or "risky".

MailAfiniti doesn't offer catch-all addresses, and for most small businesses that's no loss. A better approach is to create aliases for the specific addresses you expect, such as common misspellings of your name or a former employee's address, and let everything else bounce so senders know to check.

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What is a shared mailbox?

A shared mailbox is one real inbox that several people work from: support@ answered by whoever is on shift, or info@ watched by two founders.

Providers handle access in two ways:

• Delegated access. Each person keeps their own login and is granted access to the shared inbox. Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace work this way. You can remove one person without affecting the others.
• A shared login. The mailbox has one password and everyone who works from it uses that password. This is how MailAfiniti works today. It's simple and fine for two or three trusted people, but you can't tell who replied to what, and the password must be changed whenever someone leaves.

Shared mailbox vs distribution list

These two get confused all the time, and they solve different problems:

• A shared mailbox is one inbox. Everyone sees the same messages, including what has already been answered.
• A distribution list (or group) is an alias that delivers a copy to each person's own inbox. Everyone is notified, but nobody can see whether someone else has already replied.

Use a shared mailbox when replies need to be coordinated. Use a distribution list when everyone needs to be informed.

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Team setups that work

Here is how those pieces fit the situations small teams run into most.

Two people answering the same info@ inbox

Option 1: make info@ a mailbox and both log in to it. Everyone sees what has been answered. Change the password whenever someone leaves.

Option 2: make info@ an alias that delivers to both people's own mailboxes. Each keeps their own login, but agree who replies to what, or customers will get two answers.

For a two-person business, either works. Once you are past three or four people answering the same customers, a help desk tool built for shared inboxes is worth paying for. It adds assignment and "who's replying" that plain email doesn't have.

sales@ that reaches several people

Make sales@ an alias that delivers to each salesperson's mailbox. Every inquiry lands with everyone at once, and whoever picks it up replies from their own address, which also tells the customer who they are dealing with.

"Do I pay for every address, like billing@ and hello@?"

Not if they are aliases. On MailAfiniti, aliases are free and unlimited, and you pay only for mailboxes that someone logs in to. A typical five-person business might run five mailboxes and a dozen aliases. Mailbox or alias? has more examples.

Seasonal staff or a short-term freelancer

Give them a real mailbox for the time they are with you, paid monthly so you can stop when the work ends. When they leave, save any mail you need to keep, delete the mailbox, and create an alias with the same address that delivers to you. Nothing sent to them afterwards gets lost.

A virtual assistant or bookkeeper

Don't share your own password. Give them their own mailbox, then point the relevant aliases (invoices@, billing@) at both of you. They see the invoices, you still get a copy, and they never see the rest of your email.

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Choosing for your business

A setup that suits most businesses under ten people:

1. One mailbox per person who sends and receives email as themselves.
2. Aliases for every public address that doesn't need its own login: info@, hello@, invoices@, press@.
3. Group aliases for addresses several people need to see: sales@, team@.
4. A shared mailbox only where replies must be coordinated in one place, such as support@.
5. No catch-all. Create aliases for the specific addresses you expect instead.

If you're running several brands, the same rules apply to each domain. Email hosting for multiple domains covers that setup.

MailAfiniti includes unlimited free aliases on every plan, with mailboxes from $1.50 a month billed annually ($2 monthly). You can try it free for 14 days and set up your aliases before moving anyone over.

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FAQ

What is an email alias?

An email alias is an extra email address that delivers into a mailbox you already have. It has no password and no storage of its own. Businesses use aliases for public addresses such as info@, sales@ and billing@, so mail arrives in a real person's inbox without paying for another mailbox.

Is an email alias a separate email account?

No. An alias is just an address. All mail sent to it is stored in the mailbox it points to, and you read it by logging in to that mailbox.

Can I reply from an email alias?

It depends on the provider. Some let you choose an alias as the From address. On MailAfiniti, replies are sent from the mailbox itself, so if you need to send as an address regularly, make it a mailbox.

Do email aliases cost money?

Usually not. Most business email providers charge per mailbox and include aliases free. On MailAfiniti, aliases are free and unlimited on every plan.

What is a catch-all email address?

A catch-all collects mail sent to any address on your domain that doesn't exist, such as typos or former employees' addresses. It prevents bounces but attracts a lot of spam, and MailAfiniti doesn't offer one. Creating aliases for the specific addresses you expect is usually the better option.

What is the difference between a shared mailbox and a distribution list?

A shared mailbox is one inbox that several people work from, so everyone sees the same messages and replies. A distribution list is an alias that delivers a copy to each person's own inbox, so everyone is notified but replies aren't visible to the others.

Can one alias deliver to several people?

Yes. An alias can point to several mailboxes at once, which works like a distribution list. It's a common setup for sales@ or team@.