Tempik — Disposable Temp Mail on Cloudflare Workers

Tempik is a self-hosted disposable email service that runs entirely on Cloudflare Workers — no VPS required. It uses Cloudflare Email Workers to receive inbound email, D1 for storage, and serves a clean web UI from the edge.

Repo: github.com/hirotomasato/tempik

How it works

Sender → Cloudflare MX → Email Worker (email handler)
                                  │
                                  ▼
                          D1 Database (SQLite)
                                  │
                                  ▼
                   Worker HTTP handler → Web UI + API

• No VPS — everything runs on Cloudflare's edge
• No Postfix — Cloudflare Email Workers handle SMTP ingestion natively
• No Docker — just wrangler deploy
• Zero cost — fits within Cloudflare's free tier

Prerequisites

Before you start, you need:

| Requirement | Details | |---|---| | Cloudflare account | Sign up here (free) | | A domain | Must be added to Cloudflare (nameservers pointed to Cloudflare) | | Node.js | v18 or later (download) | | npm | Comes with Node.js |

Step 1 — Clone & install dependencies

git clone https://github.com/hirotomasato/tempik.git
cd tempik
npm install

Step 2 — Login to Cloudflare

npx wrangler login

This opens a browser window. Log in with your Cloudflare account and approve the OAuth scopes.

What scopes are needed? Wrangler will request permissions for Workers, D1, Email Routing, Pages, and more. You must approve all of them so the CLI can create the database and deploy the worker.

Verify you're logged in:

npx wrangler whoami

Step 3 — Configure wrangler.toml

Open wrangler.toml and replace the placeholder values with your own:

name = "tempik"
main = "src/index.ts"
compatibility_date = "2025-06-01"

# Set to false when using your own domain (skip workers.dev)
workers_dev = false

# D1 Database — leave database_id empty for now, we'll fill it in Step 4
[[d1_databases]]
binding = "DB"
database_name = "tempik-db"
database_id = ""

# Email Worker
[email]
action = "process"

# Custom domain — CHANGE THIS to your own domain
[[routes]]
pattern = "tempik.YOURDOMAIN.com"
custom_domain = true

# Environment — CHANGE THESE
[vars]
APP_NAME = "Tempik"
MAIL_DOMAIN = "YOURDOMAIN.com"
WEB_HOST = "tempik.YOURDOMAIN.com"

# Static assets (don't change)
[assets]
directory = "./src/web"

[observability]
enabled = true

All three vars + the routes pattern must be updated:

• YOURDOMAIN.com → your actual domain (e.g. example.com)
• tempik.YOURDOMAIN.com → the subdomain for the web UI

Step 4 — Create the D1 database

npx wrangler d1 create tempik-db

You'll see output like:

✅ Successfully created DB 'tempik-db'

[[d1_databases]]
binding = "DB"
database_name = "tempik-db"
database_id = "xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx"

Copy the database_id into your wrangler.toml.

Step 5 — Apply the database schema

Push the schema to your remote D1 database on Cloudflare:

npx wrangler d1 execute tempik-db --remote --file=src/db/schema.sql

This creates four tables:

• inboxes — email addresses
• messages — received emails
• sessions — browser session tokens
• session_inboxes — which inboxes belong to which session

Note: The --remote flag is important — without it, the schema only applies locally. You want it on Cloudflare's servers.

Step 6 — Deploy the Worker

npx wrangler deploy

This does three things:

1. Uploads the TypeScript Worker code
2. Uploads the static frontend files (HTML/CSS/JS) to Cloudflare Assets (edge CDN)
3. Registers the custom domain route

After a successful deploy, you'll see:

Deployed tempik triggers
  tempik.YOURDOMAIN.com (custom domain)

Step 7 — Setup DNS on Cloudflare

7a. Web UI (automatic)

Cloudflare automatically creates the DNS record for your Worker's custom domain. If it doesn't:

• Go to Cloudflare Dashboard → Workers & Pages → tempik → Settings → Domains
• The custom domain tempik.YOURDOMAIN.com should already be listed

7b. MX Records (automatic with Email Routing)

Email Routing should already be enabled on your domain. Verify:

npx wrangler email routing settings YOURDOMAIN.com

It should show Enabled: true. The catch-all rule is also automatically set up — every *@YOURDOMAIN.com is routed to the tempik Worker:

npx wrangler email routing rules list YOURDOMAIN.com

Expected output:

Catch-all rule: enabled, action: worker:tempik

7c. SPF Record (optional but recommended)

If you don't already have an SPF record, add one so emails don't get flagged as spam:

| Type | Name | Content | |---|---|---| | TXT | @ | v=spf1 include:_spf.mx.cloudflare.net ~all |

Step 8 — Test it

1. Open https://tempik.YOURDOMAIN.com in your browser
2. Click New → Random to create a disposable address
3. Send an email from Gmail/any provider to that address
4. Click Refresh — the email appears in your inbox

Commands cheat sheet

| Command | What it does | |---|---| | npm run deploy | Deploy Worker + static assets | | npm run db:migrate | Apply schema to production D1 | | npm run db:local | Apply schema to local D1 (for dev) | | npx wrangler dev | Run Worker locally | | npx wrangler tail | Stream live logs from production | | npx wrangler d1 execute tempik-db --remote --command="SELECT * FROM messages LIMIT 10" | Query the database |

Check if emails are being received

npx wrangler d1 execute tempik-db --remote --command="SELECT * FROM messages ORDER BY received_at DESC LIMIT 5;"

Watch live logs

npx wrangler tail --format pretty

Then send a test email — you'll see the Worker processing it in real time.

Project structure

tempik/
├── wrangler.toml              # Worker config, D1 binding, routes, env vars
├── package.json
├── tsconfig.json
├── .gitignore
└── src/
    ├── index.ts               # Entry point: fetch() + email() handlers
    ├── email-handler.ts       # Parses inbound email via PostalMime → D1
    ├── api/
    │   └── routes.ts          # Hono router: /api/config, /api/session, /api/inboxes, /api/messages
    ├── db/
    │   ├── schema.sql         # D1 tables (inboxes, messages, sessions, session_inboxes)
    │   └── queries.ts         # Typed query functions
    ├── utils/
    │   └── random-address.ts  # Human-like random email generator
    └── web/
        ├── index.html         # Frontend UI
        ├── app.js             # Frontend logic (vanilla JS)
        └── styles.css         # Dark theme styles

Tech stack

| Layer | Tech | |---|---| | Runtime | Cloudflare Workers | | Router | Hono | | Email parsing | PostalMime | | Database | Cloudflare D1 (SQLite) | | Static hosting | Cloudflare Workers Assets (edge CDN) | | Language | TypeScript | | CLI | Wrangler v4 |

Troubleshooting

"This site can't be reached / DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN"

Your domain's nameservers are not pointed to Cloudflare, or the DNS record hasn't propagated yet. Check:

dig +short YOURDOMAIN.com NS

Should show *.ns.cloudflare.com. Propagation can take up to 24 hours after changing nameservers.

Emails not appearing in the web UI

1. The email was received but the inbox hasn't been linked to your browser session. Click New → type the exact local-part → click Create to claim it.
2. Check the database:

   npx wrangler d1 execute tempik-db --remote --command="SELECT * FROM messages ORDER BY received_at DESC LIMIT 5;"

3. Check live logs:

   npx wrangler tail --format pretty

"Unexpected fields found in top-level field: email"

This is a known wrangler warning — it's cosmetic. The [email] config works fine. Cloudflare is still stabilizing the Email Worker integration.

Wrangler version mismatch

This project uses Wrangler v4. If you're on v3:

npm install --save-dev wrangler@4

License

MIT

Developer by masantoid