By Alan Henry, Lifehacker – October 16, 2012 at 08:00AM
Whether you’re testing your mail filters to make sure nothing gets through, or you’ve set up a new webapp and need to make your service will stand up under the onslaught of tons and tons of email, Mailbait is a service that’s simple to use: type in an email address and click run to instantly fill that mailbox with newsletters, notifications, and other mail.
MailBait runs quietly in the background on the web as long as you let it, signing up the address you provided for mailing lists and newsletters (most of which will require confirmation before they add you to their subscriber list) over and over, working through thousands of registrations. I let it run for about 15 minutes and it leveled a freshly created email address with well over 50 subscription sign ups, all right in the inbox, with only a handful routed automatically to spam. Keep in mind that your browser data and IP address is passed through and included in the signups (and visible to the recipient), so it’s by no means anonymous, unless of course you take measures to hide yourself.
How well MailBait works depends entirely on the strength of your spam filters and your mail provider’s anti-spam technology. You’ll know your service or inbox is up to the task if it survives the load of email, and you’ll know your filters or mail provider is doing well if you stop getting email after running MailBait for a while, even if it’s still running. If you don’t, though, well, we hope your filters are up to the task (or the person you’re pranking doesn’t get too angry with you) and that you don’t actually confirm any of the subscriptions that MailBait signs you up for.