xiaozhou26/icloud-hme — explained in plain English
Analysis updated 2026-05-18
Create and manage Hide My Email aliases from a script or API instead of the iCloud app.
Automatically fetch mail sent to a specific hidden email alias.
Manage Hide My Email aliases across multiple iCloud accounts from one tool.
| xiaozhou26/icloud-hme | baiyuetribe/glink | sphireinc/foundry | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stars | 201 | 209 | 183 |
| Language | Go | Go | Go |
| Last pushed | — | 2021-11-10 | — |
| Maintenance | — | Dormant | — |
| Setup difficulty | hard | moderate | moderate |
| Complexity | 4/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 |
| Audience | developer | general | developer |
Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.
Requires iCloud cookies or an app-specific password, and cookies typically expire in about a day.
icloud-hme is a self-hosted tool, written in Go, for managing Apple's Hide My Email feature from outside the iCloud apps. According to its Chinese-language README, it works by reverse-engineering iCloud's web interface and using the IMAP email protocol, letting a user create new hidden email aliases, list the ones they already have, and fetch the messages sent to them. The tool runs as a small HTTP server with a JSON API. It can create an alias, list all aliases for an account, deactivate or reactivate one, delete one, and read incoming mail for a given alias. For reading mail, it tries an IMAP connection using an Apple app-specific password first, since that lets it search by recipient on the mail server itself, and falls back to reading through the web API with a browser cookie if no app password is set up. It also supports managing several iCloud accounts side by side, each with its own credentials. Getting it running means either downloading a prebuilt binary for your platform, pulling a Docker image, or compiling it yourself with Go 1.26 or newer. Accounts are configured through a JSON file or through the API itself, and the tool needs either exported browser cookies from a signed-in iCloud session or an Apple-generated app password, depending on which features are used. Cookies typically expire after about a day, according to the README's troubleshooting notes, so they need to be refreshed periodically. The project uses the Gin web framework for its HTTP API, a Go IMAP library for mail, and a TLS fingerprinting library to avoid being blocked by iCloud's anti-scraping defenses. Because it needs real account credentials to work, anyone using it should treat those credentials, and the tool's own API, as sensitive.
A self-hosted Go server for creating, listing, and reading mail from Apple Hide My Email aliases outside the official iCloud apps.
Mainly Go. The stack also includes Go, Gin, IMAP.
Setup difficulty is rated hard, with roughly 1h+ to a first successful run.
Mainly developer.
This repo across BitVibe Labs
double-check against the repo, no cap.