How to send and receive email using the Ethereum Naming Service

Skiff Mail enables sending and receiving private, end-to-end encrypted emails using your Ethereum Naming Service name.

modal containing email aliases and usernames

Skiff – private, end to end encrypted, and decentralized Web3 email - recently rolled out deeper integrations with ENS, the Ethereum Naming Service. Skiff Mail is a privacy first and fully end-to-end encrypted communication and collaboration product that allows you to send and receive private messages. Skiff’s other products – including Skiff Pages and Skiff Drive – allow you to collaborate communicate and share files, all completely privately.Skiff Mail is built to be fully Web3 native and integrates with many of the most popular browser-based wallets for Ethereum and Solana. This includes a deep integration with MetaMask, Brave Wallet (detailed in our blog post), and Keplr, as well as Protocol Labs’ IPFS for decentralized storage.Wallets are anonymous, private, and user friendly way to own your own identity, utilize various tokens, and purchase or share assets without providing any personally identifying information. Now, through Skiff, wallets power a whole new form of collaboration and communication on the web.This blog outlines how to set up, send, and receive into encrypted private messages using your ENS name.

What is the Ethereum Naming Service

The Ethereum Naming Service adds a human readable and easy-to-share layer on top of Ethereum wallet addresses, which are 42 character hexadecimal addresses (and hard to remember!). ENS names are a resolution, lookup, and naming service built into the Ethereum blockchain, so human readable names - like skiff.eth - can be easily shared and resolved to a particular Ethereum address.The ENS DAO and governance system also includes protocols for registering names, expiring names, and, more recently, auctioning names for further use. ENS is a fully decentralized protocol, allowing token holders to vote on future proposals, governance, and community operations. The $ENS token is an ERC-20 token used to govern the Ethereum Naming Service.

Setting up your ENS name on Skiff

To set up your ENS name on Skiff, begin by connecting the wallet that owns the ENS name as an NFT. To purchase an ENS name, you can visit the ENS decentralized app, and ENS wallet lookups can be done publicly on Etherscan as well.
When you purchase a ENS name, you will create forward and reverse resolution records. These records indicate that a given ENS is owned by your particular wallet address, and, in the reverse direction, you can add a default resolution record for your wallet address to resolve to an ENS name.Once you’ve purchased and set up your ENS name, you can connect this name to Skiff by signing up with the wallet you used to purchase your ENS name and add a resolution record.

Using the compose window to send mail with your ENS

Once you have signed up and connected your wallet, such as MetaMask, Brave Wallet, BitKeep, or other wallets, log into Skiff’s web, mobile, or desktop apps using this wallet address and the password created on signup.Now, when you open the compose window you will see your wallet address registered as your default sending from alias, as well as your Ethereum address using the domain ethereum.email, which is only usable once you have proven that you own your particular wallet address. For example, the addresses [email protected] and 0x0bc607...25ad[email protected] will be available once connecting your wallet.
If you have signed up with a Wallet that is connected to an ENS name, you will also see it as a front address in the compose window. In the example above, the wallet address 0x0bc607...25ade6 has registered skiff.eth, so [email protected] will also be available.

Receiving mail at your ENS name

As outlined above, an ENS name can be resolved back to a paritcular Ethereum wallet address. So, when mail is sent to a given ENS name, like [email protected], Skiff will automatically resolve it to back to a wallet address, which will have been used to sign up and create a Skiff account.This enables using an ENS name not only for sending mail as a Compose alias, but also for receiving mail from other Skiff users and from external email addresses. In a world where owning your own data and identity is a necessity, using the Ethereum naming service to send and receive mail is a critical next step in ensuring a privacy-first future.

Ready to try it out?

If you don’t already own an ENS name head over to ens.domains to check out the marketplace and registration process. Then, visit https://app.skiff.com/signup in a wallet connected browser to register a Skiff account.