# Sending a plain HTML form to inboxy

You don't need a server to collect a contact form. Point an ordinary HTML `<form>` at a `mailto:` address and the visitor's own mail app sends it — and using a disposable `@inboxy.net` alias as the target means you can retire it the moment it starts attracting spam, without touching your real inbox.

## The form

```html
<form action="mailto:quiet-otter-47@inboxy.net" method="post" enctype="text/plain">
  <input type="text" name="Your name">
  <input type="text" name="Address">
  <textarea name="Message"></textarea>
  <input type="submit" value="Submit">
</form>
```

[Mint a fresh address](/help/addresses) for this and use it as the `action`. Give it a label like `website-contact-form` so you recognise it later.

## What actually happens when someone clicks Submit

This is the part people get wrong: **the browser does not send anything over the network.** `mailto:` isn't an HTTP endpoint — it's an instruction to open whatever mail app is registered on the visitor's device, pre-filled with the field names and values as the body, addressed to your inboxy alias. The visitor still has to hit **send** in their own mail client.

That means:

- **A visitor with no configured mail app gets nothing to submit.** Increasingly common on phones and in browsers with no default mail handler — the click silently does nothing, or opens a picker they abandon.
- **Nothing is validated or required server-side.** A blank "Message" field submits fine; you're relying on the visitor's mail client, not your markup, for anything beyond basic browser field validation.
- **Support is inconsistent across browsers.** `enctype="text/plain"` for `mailto:` forms is a long-standing HTML feature, but exactly how field data is laid out in the body (and whether it fires at all without a click, or from a background tab) varies by browser and by which mail app is registered. Test in the browsers your actual visitors use before relying on it.

If you need a form that reliably reaches you even when a visitor has no mail client configured, you need a real backend (your own server, or a third-party form-relay service) that sends the email itself — `mailto:` forms are a no-backend convenience, not a guarantee of delivery.

## Why point it at inboxy instead of your real address

The `action="mailto:…"` value sits in your page's HTML source — anyone can view it, and scrapers do. If you put your personal address there directly, it's exposed forever.

Point it at a disposable inboxy alias instead:

- If the address starts attracting spam, [retire it](/help/addresses#retiring-one) and mint a new one for the form — your real email is never in the page source.
- The label you gave it when minting shows up next to incoming mail, so submissions are easy to pick out from everything else in your inbox.
- Want your agent to triage submissions automatically? See [Connecting an AI agent](/help/connect-mcp).

## Stuck?

[support@inboxy.net](mailto:support@inboxy.net).