If you have a Gmail account you really have unlimited email addresses.
If you use Gmail, did you know that you actually have unlimited email addresses you can use? The secret is the + symbol.
Let’s say your email address is me@gmail.com. By adding a plus symbol after ‘me’ you can create unlimited variations of your email address and all will be delivered to your inbox. For example:
me+1@gmail.com
me+bank@gmail.com
me+whois@gmail.com
These will all be delivered to the me@gmail.com account.
Here are reasons you might want to use email variations using the plus symbol.
1. Filter your Gmail.
Get a lot of newsletters? Want to send certain emails directly to the archive? Use unique email addresses in combination with filters to sort your email.
2. Track Whois harvesting.
Use your Gmail account +whois for your Whois records to see who is contacting you by harvesting the Whois database.
3. See who is selling your address.
Use a unique email address for each account/login you create online to see if the business is selling your email address.
4. Reduce phishing attempts.
Use a unique identifier for each account you create to make sure you aren’t getting phished. For example, your bank email could be me+wellsfargo@gmail.com. If you get a message from Wells Fargo that uses just me@gmail.com instead of me+wellsfargo@gmail.com, then someone has harvested your email address and might be trying to trick you.
5. Reduce the chances of hacks impacting your accounts.
When hackers steal credentials from a service they then sell this information to people who run scripts to use the username/email and password combos to break into more accounts at other providers. If you use a unique email address for each service then they will be less likely to get into your other accounts.
The only problem I’ve run into using + symbols is that some web forms won’t accept the symbol and won’t accept it as a valid email address.
I knew. 🙂 it’s also possible to add one or more dots (“.”) anywhere within the @gmail.com email address one has and all will redirect to the same inbox.
Example: domainnamewire@gmail.com, domain.name.wire@gmail.com and d.o.m.a.i.n.n.a.m.e.w.i.r.e@gmail.com would all redirect to the same Gmail inbox.
I don’t see as much of a use case for dots. There are fewer combos and they aren’t as intuitive (easy to remember) as +somethingdescriptive
Another problem is that the dots approach doesn’t work with gsuite accounts
For those using their own domain name for email, perhaps a better approach is to setup a third level/sub domain name with catch all email configured. Example: your domain name is domainnamewire.com so setup reply.domainnamewire.com with catch all email configured. You’ll now be able to immediately use [anything]@reply.domainnamewire.com as an email address anywhere you wish. All incoming mail can be routed as you prefer or just to one inbox. Substitute “reply” for any other sub domain name you may prefer. This method has the benefit of not tainting the email addresses at the second level domain name.
plus method is more useful for filtering, dot method will get past almost all filters
Very handy tip. I did not know that. Thank you.
I wasn’t aware of it. Thanks for the tip.
Interesting
Great tip Andrew.
Not foolproof, some bulk enail scripts have option to remove the + symbol and anything after it and change it to regular address.
ive been adding dots in between letters, makes a different email address goes to same place.
If my email is dnw at gmail and someone else has dnw1 at gmail, what happens if they use a plus or a dot?
Is this a way for someone to hijack or copy my gmail acct ?
No it can’t hijack. Everything is sent to the main email address. Dnw1+ something is a different email
I have a couple gmail accts.
One of them, I have the primary domain (one word). Someone else has the same domain but it has a number – ie word25 at gmail. Occasionally, I get his email. I check the header and it is correct for his email. (I checked, no periods in the email address)
That is why I raised the question.
I start wondering, if someone else is getting my emails for the ‘word at gmail’.
Been doing this for a long time. Last year, I caught a small Indian registrar Netlynx selling my email thanks to this feature. Got tons of spam from it.
I owns the dot version of my name in id and i gets all mails of without dot version email which is irrelevant to me. Not sure if my emails are getting into his mail account. Complained to gmail but no response.
You’re supposed to receive them. Example: if you use “ibrahim.khan@gmail[.com]”, ibrahimkhan@gmail[.com] is an alias of that and will redirect to your Gmail inbox. You can place dots anywhere within your email address, before the @gmail.com, (but not two ajacent, so no “i..brahim”) to use other aliases.
Further clarification: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7436150?hl=en
Would be useful if you explained … as this is well known … why would spammers not just strip off everything after and including the ‘+’ – rendering your attempt at spam control ineffective.
I’ve found that spammers aren’t that sophisticated