Setting Up a Family Forwarding Address for Subscriptions

One address, delivered to your family's shared inbox, that you can hand out for new signups. Here's how to set it up cleanly.

The address you get

family-<your-family-id>@public.warpdesk.space. That's the primary. Mail to that address goes straight into your shared inbox.

Using it directly

Type it into the 'email' field when signing up for a new service. Works everywhere. No forwarding required.

Forwarding from existing addresses

Gmail, iCloud, Fastmail, ProtonMail — all of them support forwarding rules. Set up a rule that forwards receipts, verification codes, and account alerts.

Filtering before forwarding

Only forward what belongs in the shared inbox. Personal mail, work mail, and one-off correspondence should stay in personal addresses.

Aliasing on Gmail

Gmail supports plus-addressing (you+netflix@gmail.com) that maps to your main account. Some services accept it, some don't. If it works, it's a lightweight alternative.

What happens on our side

Inbound mail hits our public endpoint, gets verified, sanitized, and written to your family's inbox row. Any member can read it.

When a sender misbehaves

Some services strip forwarding headers or send weirdly formatted mail. You'll see it in the inbox as a plaintext-only message. Report it to us if it's unreadable and we'll add a parser.

Unsubscribing

Unsubscribe links work as expected. Because the inbox is read-only, you'll need to click them from an authenticated browser session.

A worked example

A family sets up forwarding from one parent's Gmail. Within a week, every household receipt lands in the shared inbox. The other parent stops asking 'what was that charge?'

Wrap it up

The forwarding setup is a five-minute investment that keeps paying dividends for years. It's the single feature most families report as 'the reason they stayed.'