1 Awesome Gmail tip You Don’t Know about. Seriously.

Gmail Logo Just about when I thought I got everything out of Gmail, I discovered my top favorite feature. We have published over 30 tools in Gmail RoundUp 1 and almost 80 tools and tips in Gmail RoundUp 2 but never mentioned anything similar to this one. Tribute for this one goes to my ‘I am not into computers‘ type girlfriend.

Let’s say that your email address is ‘GeorgeBush@gmail.com’, basically everything sent to any of the following email addresses will be forwarded to your primary email.

GeorgeBush@gmail.com
G.eorgeBush@gmail.com
Ge.orgeBush@gmail.com

…
…

GeorgeBus.h@gmail.com

GeorgeBush@googlemail.com
G.eorgeBush@googlemail.com
Ge.orgeBush@googlemail.com

…
…

GeorgeBus.h@googlemail.com

And that’s not all, you can place as many dots as you want, it can be even something like ‘G.e.o.r.g.e.B.u.s.h@gmail.com’ and you’ll still get it on ‘GeorgeBush@gmail.com’

Additionally, I just also found out that you can embed random text to your email ID using ‘+’ sign. That is to say ‘GeorgeBush+anythingyouwant@gmail.com’ can be used as your email address, as well.

Ok I got it. Now what ?

1. One email for every purpose

Instead of using different email addresses for various purposes (work, school, friends, etc.) you can use different variations of your Gmail and filter incoming mails by ‘sent to’ address. For instance, all incoming mail sent to ‘Name.Surname@gmail.com’ can be put to folder ‘work’, messages sent to ‘NameSurname@gmail.com’ can be put to ‘friends’, ‘N.ameSurname@gmail.com’ can be used for newsletters, and so on.

2. Track/Block spammers

When signing up for some website, say thatwebsite.com, you can add thatwebsite to your Gmail user ID (eg. GeorgeBush+thatwebsite@gmail.com). This way you can block your subscription whenever you want and even identify those websites that distribute your email address to spammers.

UPDATE:

Hello folks, here is another EXCELLENT find for Gmailers. Download Gmail Cheat Sheet to learn and master keyboard shortcuts. You might be surprised how much faster you can get with them. Plus most are pretty intuitive so you won’t need to memorize them. You can download printable one page long Gmail shortcut sheet from here.

More Tips? Surprise me in the comments.

Tagged: email • Gmail • How-To Articles • privacy • spam

Aibek Esengulov

The guy behind MakeUseOf.com. Follow him and MakeUseOf on Twitter @MakeUseOf. For more details check out MakeUseOf about page.

Similar Stuff

The comments were closed because the article is more than 90 days old.

If you have any questions related to stuff mentioned in the article or need help with any computer issue, just ask it on MakeUseOf Answers.

http://alpesh-mynotebook.blogspot.com/ Alpesh

Good One !!!

mroblivious1bmf

Not impressed.

http://www.jackbook.com JackBook.Com

yeah, knew this for a long time ago,
but still makeuseof.com has a really good style to tell this story to their readers.
i love their entertaining writing.
that is something taht i have to learn.
thanks

Yesh

I have known this for a good long time. Another great feature is that you can add +anything to the end of your gmail. For example:

somebody+spam@gmail.com

This isn’t allowed by all website’s forms however, some flag a + as an invalid character.

Nevi

Then show us something mr badass.Remarks like yours is a typical sign of mr knowitall.Know the type.
Ali

I don’t really see how this is orignal. I mean it is and everything its just kinda weird. And who cares.

http://www.voip-download.com/Skype.htm Skype Help

Agree – good list of GMail tips. I’ve added one too – see below.

…S…

http://www.betterthantherapy.net mark

Number one won’t work. Filters don’t distinguish the dots in the email address. To the filters, the dots are invisible. If you want to filter emails, better to set up a filter according to the sender’s email address.

Number two DOES work though. Although any spammers with an ounce of intelligence will remove everything after the “+”. I use the “+” method all the time to send emails to myself to different filters. So book reviews I like get emailed to myself at username+bookreviews@gmail.com and so on.

Scott

Beg to differ on point 1, have tested it and it was filtered successfully with an extra dot in my address.

http://www.toxzik.com/ brian

A lot of websites don’t allow you to enter an email address that includes a + symbol.

http://what-is-what.com/what_is/gmail.html What is Gmail?

As the + symbol is a legal character in an email address, blocking it would be akin to blocking the letter A. Which sites don’t allow it? Write to them and tell them that the programmer used a bad regex to validate email addresses.

dp

That’s akin to emailing an ISP and telling them that a host on their network is spamming. They won’t do anything about it, because it’s not affecting them. Because most of the ‘validators’ for email online don’t support anything more than the absolute minimum, many times, my email dp [at] dp [dot] cx is considered invalid. I’m told that I need a 3 character username, and a 3 character TLD….

http://www.jackbook.com JackBook.Com

Validating email is easy. you can use client side scripting or even server side scripting.It’s just about the sites policy I think.

Some sites (webmasters) has been clever enough to know that gmail allow as to use + after our mail address as a kind of fake email. and they just don’t want people to register into their site with a fake address.

That’s why many website won’t allow you to register with email that has + on the address.

imw, thanks
joequincy

@ JackBook
While the sentiment about fake email addresses is valid, it’s a non-sequitur to assume that it’s the source of bad validation. Using a “+” in email addresses is not uncommon, nor unique to gmail. Gmail has merely implemented it as a form of sub-address, which is far from fake addresses (10 Minute Mail anyone?).

Any developer whose validation eliminates use of “+” in email addresses is either ignorant to the fact that it’s a valid character, or paranoid about visitors who ignore the bulk emails (usually worthless “notices” and/or unsolicited newsletters) they send out.

Bane

Go create a gmail account with $ ‘ or ! in the address, those are valid too.

Go look at email validation code, most want just A-z and 0-9, and periods.

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

Hmmm… sounds strange, number one definitely works for me. Maybe different programs/clients handle filters differently. I use Thunderbird 2.0 and it definitely works for me. My filters are up and running. .
What client/program are you using ?
http://makeuseof.com Aibek

@ Brian

I agree most of the bigger and popular ones won’t allow it, but smaller ones usually overlook this.
http://www.mysigchat.uni.cc SigChat

sorta old news, note that many places won’t accept a + character because it’s not considered valid – some e-mail clients may even trash incoming emails because it sees this as something hostile, e-mail addresses were formerly restricted to only alphanumeric characters and originally could not start with a number – but over time this has changed, but we’re still finicky over it.
http://www.betterthantherapy.net mark

I am just using the web-based Gmail and if someone emails me with dots in the username, it is disregarded by the filters and ends up in my inbox. Even Gmail seems to confirm this – http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=10313

Brian is correct in that you can’t sign up for web-based services with a “+” in the email address. The website kicks it back as “invalid”. But it DOES work if you email someone. As I said, I email myself articles and text all the time with the “+” and it works perfectly.

Scott

if your email is, I dunno, lets say johndoe@gmail.com and you want to sing up to a website as john.doe@gmail.com, then you create a filter for this you can select archive to have it skip the inbox.

I do this as well as have the filter give it a label, depending on the site it comes form and there you have it, easy to be found as well as not cluttering up the inbox.
Matt

Filtering based on dots in the address via the web interface does indeed work. I have done it.

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

@ Mark

It seems that the filtering using dots in the email address will work only if you’re using desktop email client (Mozilla ThunderBird, Microsoft Outlook, etc.).

Thanks for correction
http://www.ccisystems.ro Cristi Cotovan

This is almost a duplicate of this story:

http://www.hitechsquad.com/2007/08/14/create-unique-email-addresses-instantly-with-gmail-and-the-sign/
me

i knew this

Mustafizur Kahn

I love reading articles titled, “Yadda Yadda you probably didn’t know.” I always like to read the comments, to see how far down I have to go before someone takes the time to point out that, yes, in fact, he knew it. Gotta love the egomaniacal postings.

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

Good point
Steve Jobs

I knew that you would post that!

http://www.PassportMentors.com Megan Vaillancourt

Going to go try it out. Didn’t know any of these features. Hey I knew it sent mail the old fashion way, never took the time to check out the rest.
http://aaron calvin

this is old news, like a few years

http://www.jackbook.com JackBook.Com

yeah, and still many people didn’t know it.
Anson Einstein

Then it wasn’t meant for you to waste your time reading.
It was for the people who didn’t know about it. Duh.

pete

just a shame that your g-mails become public domain after 2 yrs – read the license morons! no matter how many fancy features they put on ur account the fact remains that it’s not secure and that g-mail is a load of poop (put mildly)

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

Totally agree with Dave, some references would be nice.
Moe-Ron Kabbejhed

Could you point this moron to the section in the terms of service that states that my gmail goes into the public domain after 2 years? No? I didn’t think so – it doesn’t exist.

http://problogreviews.blogspot.com/ ProBlogReviews

nice find
http://www.ladadadada.net Dave

@pete:
I’m not sure where you get your poop from but it would be nice if you could provide a reference to it. I’ve just had a look through the Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy for Gmail and neither have any reference to anything happening after two years. In fact, as far as your data is concerned, the Terms of Use states: (Section 5, last paragraph)

Google does not claim any ownership in any of the content, including any text, data, information, images, photographs, music, sound, video, or other material, that you upload, transmit or store in your Gmail account. We will not use any of your content for any purpose except to provide you with the Service.
http://sweet-thang.net Anya

I’ve had several gmail accounts for about 3 years now and never knew that! Never had any problems with gmail, either. Great tip, I’ve always used filters, but this is definitely an innovative way.
http://www.articlesnatch.com/blog/ Matt Ellsworth

Nice tips. I’ve knew some of these…
http://www.thestick.co.za LLLL

Smart. Thanks.
http://www.trapsolutions.com Ash

Awesome
http://www.mailinator.com Timz

Mailinator FTW !
http://alexpb.com Alex

you can use #1 in google’s webmail if you add a new account with this “user.na.me”:

Setting – Account – Add Another Mail Account (enter the “fake” em.a.il and then use your regular username)
Jesus H

I just wet my pants thanks to the sheer numbing awesomeness of this piece of trivia. I’ve been waiting all my life for such a momentous event, as have the limbless Iraqis and malnourished children everywhere. The rapture is truly at hand.

jesus.h@gmail.com

http://makeuseof.com Aibek
DC

It’s nice to see that you’re spending your time participating in this post and ridiculing everyone else for it instead of doing something noble.

http://functionalitymightchange bobh

undefined functionality like that might change without notice, so the people who had the bogus email IDs might not be able to contact you in the future.

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

There is nothing wrong with such usage. After all, all those deviations forwarded to only one mailbox. Making it unusable may result in serious consequences for millions of service users (Gmail subscribers), so it’s highly unlikely.

Michael

Here’s the scenario that makes this worthless

1. Sign up for new cool site w/ email+somethingwitty@gmail.com

2. Allow time to go by, stop using new cool site

3. Attempt to log back, get forgotten password, cancel membership, etc for new cool site … having forgotten what ‘somethingwitty’ was …

You now have no clue what your own email address is … because the site isn’t smart enough to know that email@gmail.com == email+something@gmail.com

And if they were smart enough to know that … then the whole thing would be a complete waste anyway

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

Good point.
http://davidcarrington.co.uk David Carrington

Lucky you kept the signup e-mail in your gmail archives then. Even smarter of you to have it stored wisely in a label called “Account” or similar. But best of all: it was spectacular of you to notice that the original author pretty clearly states to use the site’s domain name as an obvious extra in your e-mail address.

Oh look, I just wrote something witty!
Maurice

However … your Gmail inbox is big enough never to delete anything (at least it is for me) so you really wouldn’t have to remember +somethingwitty, you just have to remember “new cool site” and search for “new cool site” in your Gmail inbox …
ravi

If you have at least 1 email from that new cool website, in that email, the ‘to’ address field contains your ‘email+sthshitty@gmail.com’ gmail address. So you’ll not forget ur email for that site.
joequincy

You’d be hard-pressed to find a password-recovery system that does not send the recovery information to the original email address.

This is a non-issue, especially when set next to the problems associated with the current frequency of having several email addresses that are literally separate (ex: ISP-domain.com, Yahoo.com, Hotmail/msn/live.com, Gmail.com, etc.)
At least with Gmail, the user merely needs to run a filter to find emails sent to a form of the address that had a “.” out of place or a “+” tacked on.

Luminus

Cool stuff. Does this work with Google for your domain emails?

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

I am not really sure what you mean. Are you referring to self hosted Gmail (like in Google Apps)? If so, I think it will work. I mean, it’s the same email program but just on a different server.

Naggleron

the + thing… you didn’t know that? rtfm doggy dogg.
Naggleron

p.s. Luminus–

assuming that you asked because you have gmail for domains, and could have tested this in about .088321 seconds instead of asking a blog comment, i’ll answer the mystery for you:

yes.
textboner

In the interests of good taste you should use a sample email address such as

N.eofascist.Moron.President@gmail.com

instead of that vulgar name you actually cited.

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

I didn’t vote for him, but at least 25% of Americans did. So, I am just being “correct” here.

Micheal

You can use http://www.e4ward.com . You sign up for a username and for each website you create an email just for it, in the form website@username.e4ward.com.

It’s quite a good idea, all it’s missing is a firefox extension to automatically generate the emails.

Micheal

forgot to close the tag. The site is http://www.e4ward.com
FreeBee

CJB.net offers the same kind of service, if anyone is looking for more options
http://makeuseof.com Aibek

Thanks for the links, however my favorite one is Mintemail. You can read about it below

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-apps-to-solve-all-browsing-issues/

Keck

The only problem is that since this scheme is all in interpreting the email address, spammers harvesting email or site owners collecting your email can easily strip out the additional text just as gmail does. Spammers are known for adapting quickly

The only real way to do this is to use your own domain and have all the email address for it forward to your real address, and use the sitename@yourdomain.com as the email you give to an individual site.

FreeBee

In an adapted form, I’ve used your method for several years now. For every site where I need to register to make use of their services, I create a new address in the form of theirsitename@my.(sub.)domain. And from that domain everything is forwarded to my gmail address to take advantage of the spam- and mail-filtering options. Works miracles.

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

Nice find. Thanks for sharing.

http://slashback.org/ Tim F.

Just so you know, the plus operator works with pretty much *any* email system, not just gmail.
Matt

bummer if you got your.name@gmail.com and not yourname@gmail.com. speaking from experience, yourname does not go to your.name, but i’m not sure if yourname gets mail from your.name.

i hope not. for reals.

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

It works in both cases. In Gmail’s eyes your.name == yourname.

Bill

NOT TRUE.

***WARNING***

Be very careful using this trick. When I first signed up for gmail, the account (for example) johnsmith@gmail.com was taken. I signed up for and was then given john.smith@gmail.com.

For a while, I was regularly receiving email intended for johnsmith@gmail.com, probably due do his using this same trick.

Sooner or later, someone WILL take your account name but with a period somewhere in the middle. You’ll suddenly stop getting emails from your contacts with that address.

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

That’s weird

If it’s so than it’s contradictory to the following note from Google itself

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=10313
John S.

I originally signed up a couple years ago with my.name@gmail.com and to this day I get a couple legitimate emails per week to whomever signed up with the exact name without the period.

Gmail denys there’s a bug, but I keep getting someone elses mail.
Jackie

I am also getting someone else’s mail. Although I never get any of his personal emails, rather subscriptions to newsletters, car deals, realtors in the area, etc. I thought that this perosn was purposely trying to spam me for taking the email address, but after reading this maybe it’s just a mistake. Whatevers the case, it’s very annoying for me to have to go and delete all these emails addressed to “Jose”.

http://www.barryandsteph.com/ James J

I never heard this before.Honestly it is troublesome to use different variation of gmail address. Anyway you are awesome!
smart

I already knew this.

Fuck you.

matelot

LOL !

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

@ matelot, @smart

Guyz, are you 12 ? 15? Tell us.

http://www.gamecron.com/ aaron

Are you sure that someone can’t just register George.Bush@gmail.com when you have GeorgeBush@gmail.com and get email to that address?

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

Yes, I am sure.

dm

Aibek – you are wrong. I have a first.name@gmail.com acct and someone else has firstname@gmail.com. I rec’v his emails. Definitely can happen – I have someone else’s emails to prove it!

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

It’s weird. Check this out

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=10313
John S.

the same thing happens to me a couple times a week, there are two of us (at least) with the same address the period being the only difference

http://www.dotcomsecrets.com Joy

I haven’t tried this one yet..I will sign up for an account and see if it works..^^..thanks for sharing it aibek..^^

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

Enjoy

Anonymous Cow

This tip has been recirculated at least five times in the last three years of my time scanning the del.icio.us/popular links .. try something new will you.
Vintechsys

This is not a good idea because it teaches our “girlfriends” how to use email Gmail’s way. Now people are going to start thinking that you can put your.name.email@whatever.com.
Anon

I knew about this already. Seriously.

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

Good for you, buddy.

fock you

My gmail account is somethingsomething@gmail.com

And there’s a guy out there that has the account something.something@gmail.com . . . sometimes I get his emails. but he’s never received my emails, so he claims.

We’ve corresponded about the problem and sent emails to Google with no reply, of course. Eventually I convinced him to stop using the account. I told him if he didn’t stop using the account, I might not forward him his email (some of it pretty confidential business stuff). I felt a little bad but I had the account first.

Perhaps Google has since “fixed” the problem . . . I don’t know. Pretty interesting situation we had there though.

matelot

wow are you sure ?

According to this gmail help, this is impossible
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=29424

Bill

It’s true. Perhaps google fixed it, but I’m also one with a something.something@gmail.com email address, and I have occasionally received emails destined for somethingsomething@gmail.com.

Aibek, if you want proof of this email me privately. I will try to set the record straight.

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

No need

I have no doubt that this had happened. If you go through all of the above comments you will find about 2-3 people who came accross this problem before.

I just wonder what G has done about it.

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

I think you are talking crap, somethingsomething and something.something ARE SAME. Considering current forwarding options there is no way these two email IDs are different.

John S.

not when Google allowed people to sign up both ways. I signed up with a dot and have to login with it. If I try to login without the dot it won’t let me. Why? Because someone else has the same name without the dots.

http://jccovey.com John

You can’t log in now without the dot in your username because the user name does not change in the database – it is what it is and it is bound forever to your account and your account’s password.

The FAQ answer on Google, cited several times in the comments on this post, confirm this to be true.

Any cases of receiving someone’s mail is likely because the other individual has used a variation of the GMail user’s address as their “reply-to” address in emails they have sent in the past. Why they would do this, I don’t know, but my money is on carelessness and lack of foresight – the two causes of most SNAFUs on the web.

http://www.hotpepper.ca/ Kim Siever

Actually, I did know about this tip. I’ve known it for three years in fact.
billy

You can do multiple dots too.

George……..Bush@gmail.com

kind of funny looking, but totally legal and it gets to you

http://www.ladadadada.net Dave

Not actually totally legal. The RFC for emails states that you can’t have more than one special character (symbol) in a row in either half of the email address.

This means that foo_.bar@gmail.com is not valid as far as the RFC is concerned and your example: foo…….bar@gmail.com is also not valid.

f.o.o.b.a.r@g.m.a.i.l.com would be totally valid (but probably wouldn’t end up at your gmail inbox).

I’m not sure exactly how various mail servers deal with invalid email addresses but suspect that the don’t all deal with them the same way so I would stick to strictly valid addresses.

http://paulstamatiou.com Paul Stamatiou

I’ve used this trick for years to signup for things with the same addy when it says I’m already registered or limits accounts etc.

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

Hey Paul,
Nice to see you here

matelot

Thank you – I didn’t know about this tip….

but then immediately I’m puzzled with the question: “ok…my google account has dot in it -
so does the account WITHOUT the dot – likely owned by someone else – get a copy of the mail sent to me !!!!!?????

I *think* this “tip” you took the trouble to post is intended for people who DO NOT know about it – like me.

But then you didn’t have the consideration to offer ANY explanation, so FUCK YOU !!!

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

I already answered YOUR comment above. Defnitely check it out.

matelot

duh

My point is you should have been more considerate and have the clarification/explanation in the post
http://www.stratify.com.au Mark

I’m thinking, not even 12.

FreeBee

Some ppl here are getting p***ed off because this tip would mean their mail is sent to someone else, and then they start yelling at aibek, as if HE can help it. As if it is HIS fault that things work this way. In stead of yelling, just register a NEW account with gmail, and make sure there are no dots in it. And from now on, use that NEW account. It’s that simple!

Actually, if you registered a name with a dot in it BECAUSE the name without the dot was already in use, then it is your OWN DANG FAULT. Your head wasn’t only meant to hang your ears on; it should contain something that’s worth USING. Try it for a change! Only childish stupid dumbf***s yell at ppl in stead of using their brains.

Sorry to everyone else for getting so worked up…

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

Thanks buddy
matelot

Hey FreeBee, FUCK YOU TOO

>> then they start yelling at aibek, as if HE can help it

I “yelled” because he put up a shitty, confusing post

>> Actually, if you registered a name with a dot in it BECAUSE the name without the dot was already in use,

According to gmailthat’s impossible.
RTFM you moron !

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

@ matelot

“… because he put up a shitty, confusing post … “.

Shitty? – i don’t think so. It ended up on reddit after all.
Confusing? – I am taking it as constructive criticism.

Check out some other posts, we got plenty of cool stuff.

Tetedepoulet

Who cares? Gmail sucks anyway
No offense

Common man, first do a litlle research, this is from 2005 or something.

Second so many comments on on something like this, we should be doing something else….

Doug

You’re an idiot. This website doesn’t offer news. It offers tips.

Tips and news should not be confused.

What if I gave you some advice about putting your money into a savings account? You might reply with “I already use a savings account”, but would you reply with “Come on man, do a little research. Savings accounts have been around since 1910.” I don’t think so.

Don’t be a jackass.

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

“This website doesnâ€™t offer news. It offers tips.”. .. EXACTLY !

I wish everyone understood this.

Thanks Doug

nixo

I don’t know if any of you people read RFC’s, but the specification for email defines an explicit use for the plus sign.
It is not a valid character for an email address. It is basically intended to define a destination folder or some other sub-destination specific to an email address.
So the plus sign is doing what it’s supposed to do.
It’s just not a popular feature so not a lot of people know about it.
Allan

Hotmail definately makes a difference between first.i.last@hotmail.com and firstilast@hotmail.com ….
http://blogrush.funnyxd.com/money/ Funny Guy

Very useful tips for people like me who have a lot of Gmail accounts to deal with.
Eddy Harvey

I got you one better –

If you go to http://www.google.com/a you can sign up for gmail using yourdomain.com. You can configure a catch-all email address, and never give out the same email address twice, using your favorite gmail web interface, yet using your own domain name. (Of course you have to pay to register your own domain name, and you have to be techy enough to set your DNS settings according to gmail’s specifications.) I use godaddy for this (something like $6 per year)

I’ve actually been doing this now for about 5 years (just haven’t been using google as my mail provider till recently) and it’s awesome.
http://bassdriven.com Brian Arbelaez

this is an awesome concept…but reading some of these post makes me think this is half flaw and half feature.

I don’t think the period should be ignored, or ‘filtered’!!

Try omitting the dot on a URI, or in and image link path. why should email be different??
IMHO, email should follow this same protocol.
dm

This is definitely FLAW not FEATURE. My email address is first.last@gmail.com and I recieve emails intended for someone I DON’T know with the same first and last name – i.e. firstlast@gmail.com. I’m sure the opposite is true. Fortunately for my counterpart, I ignore and delete emails intended for him. Fortunately for me I don’t use this account for anything too personal!

This is only an awesome feature if Google did not allow others to sign up with a similar address. Unfortunately that’s not the case… Let’s hope Google is listening.

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

This is only an awesome feature if Google did not allow others to sign up with a similar address. – Google doesn’t allow such sign ups, they treat both of the cases as one.

see http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=10313
John S.

You’re correct, the same thing is happening with my account.

mroblivious1bmf

VERY not impressed!
Stefan

Yahoo has had #2 for years. They’re called disposable e-mail addresses, and they’re available to anyone with an account. I think they’re absolutely priceless, and I have personally created dozens of them. How they differ, though, is how you make them up. Instead of using your actual e-mail address, you create a fixed base name prefix different than your original e-mail address. Then you choose a variable suffix for each of your purposes. In between is a hyphen. So the end result is:
base_name-variable_suffix@yahoo.com. It’s absolutely brilliant. Why it’s better is because as some others have noted, with Gmail, any spammer with a brain could simply use your name before the “+” and still get through. With Yahoo disposable addresses, that’s not the case.
http://resellrightsdatabase.com Rj

As stated above, I would assume this is a flaw of the system…. I’m glad that my email address isn’t too common, otherwise my email might be getting sent to somebody else; I wouldn’t care too much for that at all.
Gareth Williams

I found out about this “feature” when I realised that Google had allowed someone with the same name as myself to create an account with the same name as mine – except his email address had the dot separating his first and last name, whereas my account was created without any dot present.

This bug seems to have subsequently been fixed by Google, as attempting to create 2 accounts with such similar email addresses now fails.

As pointed out in this article, any emails sent to the address containing the dot also appear in my account, i.e. they get sent to my email address, the one created without the dot. As such, I know that my namesake plays rugby, is looking for a job (and earns less than I do), is interested in physics, and drinks too much alcohol too regularly.

I’ve tried emailing the other user to inform him of this fact, but he has chosen to not contact me. Similarly, Google have ignored my emails suggesting this “design feature” is in fact a security breach that, although has been plugged as far as creating new accounts goes, is still being inadvertently abused by myself and my namesake on a daily basis.

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

“As such, I know that my namesake plays rugby, is looking for a job (and earns less than I do), is interested in physics, and drinks too much alcohol too regularly.”

… Unbeliavable. I can just imagine what happens to the all the “Smiths” out there.
dm

my namesake has a former employee who sent a note about how happy he was that my namesake was fired and that he felt he was the most pathetic human being ever to walk the earth, has copies of deeds and mortgages sent to his gmail account (he apparently flipped houses in the housing boom), searches for crap jobs in about every state these days, and sends some of his bills to the account. i let him know once but don’t think he seems to understand how public his emails are!

http://www.urstop.com URstop

Knew it long back, but never thought how this can be put to use. Good thoughts. Thanks
http://balootisme.blogspot.com balootisme

now i know..

thanks bro..

anyway, how did u know this tip?

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

My girlfriend told me abt it.

http://www.totalfunworld.com TOTALFUNWORLD.COM

Its a great post.

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

Enjoy! We got hundreds of cool posts.

http://rajasa.com Aria Rajasa

nice one! would be good to tell what website is selling your email address
quadriyyah

dear,mslamb
i was crying alot i miss you so much and all the good things you did for us also samantha was crying to i was crying because i didn,t want you to leave i wish you were still our student teacher.also thank you for the stuff that you gave me and i will try to do my best always when i was crying i couldn,t stop thinking about you i just can,t stop but any way i hope you have a good weekend and merry christmas to you to bff but you are still the best teacher in the world and i,m crying right now why i,m typing i miss you sooooooooooooooooo much and i love you as a friend too good-bye ms.lamb i hpe you come back to visit us when we go back to school january,2.

sinserly
quadriyyah harris
http://constantreality.org/objected Bryan

I’m using your tips in this comment!
Ruchi

I’m a gmail fan and this enhances my fondness for it. It is terrific!
Dave

Yet another user here with “first.last”@gmail.com but NOT “firstlast”@gmail.com.

I just tested this trick with several combinations of dots, and received none of the emails, except for the one that was exactly the same as my address. Obviously, the system is not perfect, and as I have received several emails meant for this other person, he has tried to use the trick too.

I don’t know if I’m missing any email, but no one has commented on it.
Jim

This not new. I already knew this. You wasted my time. Again.

Joe

@ Jim

You wasted your time by reading it…no one wasted your time. It takes all of 2 seconds to scan the article and realize its info you already knew…so why keep reading and then posting. That is wasting your time…again.

http://www.shabooty.com shabooty

cool.
ive used
jondoe+SPAM@gmail before to denote spam.
Rico9

Dont use gmail,dont really understand what you are taling about, that was agreat 15mins of reading. Put that on the stage with 5-10 guys reading it out f…ing funny! Thank you all you where brill
http://atoztoa.blogspot.com ATOzTOA

OMG…. Never knew it lol. Thanks for the gr8 tip

Even then it can’t be used as a space for spam mail registrations, we register with many sites to use some onetime feature and they will send promotion mails to that id.
http://amazingbits.blogspot.com Amazing Bits

That’s neat. How you guys find out such stuff? I use mailinator dot com when I know that signing up at some site will definitely end up receiving spam. But there I can not keep the mail. I love the trick with ‘+’!
Mike

So what.
http://chedstone.com Roy

Dang. Well I knew about the ‘.’ trick but not about the ‘+’ trick…. Thanks!
http://www.projecteris.com Spikey

Well all I know is this was news to me and after reading all the good debate (among the morons who think knowing something before somebody else is worth crowing about) I thought I’d go register my Google name firstlast@googlemail.com with a period in it first.last@googlemail.com so that nobody else takes it. given that my first and last in this case are as close to unique as its possible to get this was more of an experiment than a real attempt to safeguard my mail but google disallowed the registration. I tried it with an even more unique first and last name i use and got the same thing.

So yeah, Google must have taken steps at least to prevent this.
http://www.digitalsolecism.net Mike

Knew about it.

But yeah.. this is freaking awesome. If you’re a business you can use it to sort where email is coming from without setting up multiple accounts, or a job seeker can give different variations on different resumes posted on various sites to track which one has the best use.

Love it!
Pang

Hey! I was having this random thought!
I wanted to play a joke on my friends for 2 days. So I was thinking to make them believe I am actually studying at Harvard! So how do you create a random fake uni email address that works? Anyone know that would be awesome lol
http://www.chuckchat.com Chuck Tomasi

Coincidentally, I just covered this on the latest episode of the Gmail Podcast (chuckchat.com/gmail).
Frank J

is it really a smart tip if GW’s name is in the example?
thanx tho.
Terry

Interesting and possibly very helpful
tkg

say if a person creates a gmail account john.smith@gmail.com but however say johnsmith@gmail.com is already registered then according to you gmail shouldn’t allow anyone to register that name or if it does then all mails sent to john.smith@gmail.com should go to johnsmith@gmail.com and that would mean a serious security breach, so i guess gmail wont allow you to sogn up….
[update] : well yes gmail dsnt allow !!!
n hey i tried signing up with $ in the username… it doesn’t seem to allow

Thanks
4756

Good One! I didn’t know that!
Joker

Its a freaking bug. Say you want to receive someone elses email. Easy way to do it is to register an email address the the same as thiers .. for example if some one has registered jondoe@gmail.com, you can register jon.doe@gmail.com and you will get all the mail they get!

Give it a go!!!

internet surfer

Good logic. This has really scared me. I just tested it, and fortunately, google doesn’t allow it. If some one has registered jondoe@gmail.com, jon.doe will no longer be available to register. In the same way if jon.doe@gmail.com has been registered, jondoe@gmail.com will no longer be available to register.

Midas

Have a look at http://www.spamgourmet.com! It does this and more, so you have not to be affraid of someonelse getting your mail…
http://digital-board.blogspot.com krish

Iâ€™m a gmail fan and this enhances my fondness for it. Thanks for sharing.
Sound Of Vision

Ok, so, if my e-mail was my.email.address@gmail.com (with dots), and someone makes an email that goes myemailaddress@gmail.com (without dots) I will get their emails? And additionally, it narrows down the choice of email address. People wouldn’t be able to make an address that goes my.emailaddress, or myemail.address…etc. unless they put a number in it. (people do repeat email address – that’s why there are so many with numbers in them…)
http://webhostingreality.blogspot.com Webhosting Guide

I will start using this trick today. Thanks indeed for this unknown tip.
kim w.

No, this isn’t a helpful tip.

I had to cancel my gmail account because I was myfirstnameDOTlastname@gmail.com, and someone with my same name had the email myfirstnamelastname@gmail.com — and I kept getting her email. She was a very busy wedding planner in Texas, and I kept getting solicitations from florists and churches, messages from her mother in the hospital, and love notes from her husband. I kept writing back to everyone asking them to be sure they had the write email, but nothing helped.

i finally just cancelled the account. I was considering re-registering under a different name combo, but it sounds like if Google and Gmail think this is a feature, it won’t help.

And I’m not the only one with this problem.
http://www.dalehay.com Dale Hay

Woah. I defenately didn’t know about that. I might try it myself and see if it works.
Urim

I want to know the last exact time I have log in, in my gmail account?
http://www.anewmorning.com MoiN

haha, never knew this !! nice one

MoiN
http://www.laptopupdate.com Ryan

Great way to manage email. I have used this for a few months now and functionality and flexibility that it gives you just re-affirms that Gmail is the top free email solution.
Lance

Yahoo’s disposable email feature is far superior. With their feature, if you start getting spammed on a disposable email address all one has to do to eliminate the spam destined for that email is delete the email address.
http://folders heck

Is there a function on GMAIL, like that of Yahoo I could use in regards to sorting out emails?
Ex. Yahoo email. I get all me emails (to same email addrs), from there I can sort or check off on those I want to move to a different folder (say Bill confirmations folder / shipped out folder / video emails folder / moms BS folder etc.)
I’m told gmails version of this feature is different emails, so if billpay confirms I have to give out say h.eck@gmail or for my shipment confirmtaions i need to giveout he.ck@gmail rather than letting me sort them out myself?
http://theidoserblog.blogspot.com _khAttAm_

what if the spammers code a script to remove dots and everything between + and @…
http://www.pragmites.com seo company india

This is seriously awesome!!!

i love giving people my name@googlemail.com is pretty sweet.

plus managing subscriptions have become so much more easy..

Really thanks much for this tip
http://punto-tecnologyco.blogspot.com ALINA

Awesome! Some e-mails with a lot of mail address of this type arrived to my inbox and I just felt impressed…
http://allysource.com/ the0ne

cool nice find
Jack

Good feat, but….
a little off-topic : the reason i don’t use gMail is it doesn’t accept attaching exe files.

AEinstein

That can be solved very easily. I am not being sarcastic if I sound like it.
Put your .exe in a .rar archive and put a password on it.
I use WinRAR, but I’m sure that others might work.
If you just use a .rar archive then Gmail can still “see” the program inside of it, but when you add the password it is like a . . . well, you get the picture, Gmail cannot scan inside the locked archive.

Have fun!

diego

Or, you can rename the file to something like .zipo or .raro and gmail wont realise it’s an archived file. You just tell your friend to rename the file when he receives it and that’s it

gabe565

Great tip! I’ve been using it, different addresses for forums, friends, school, etc. Thanks!
http://how-to-stop-spam.com Gert Hough

Nice to know. Will not use it though.

What will happen to all your hours of email filtering effort if google change the way they handle email catching?

AEinstein

Considering the hundreds of thousands (estimation ) of people who use Gmail, don’t you think that if Google decided to change the way they “catch” emails that they would make it backwards compatible with the existing system?
Why would they risk losing all of the Gmailers that they have? That just wouldn’t make sense.

http://www.VoIP-Download.com/Skype.htm Northman

The best feature of GMail is that is has an excellent spam filter!

So I pass all my email that goes to my personal email address (eg Firstname@Surname.com) to my GMail account (Firstname.Surname@GMail.com) and then have my Outlook pick it up from GMail (via POP).

Works MUCH better than Outlook spam filtering – AND I got a great webmail function too

N
Mandrita

Liked It !!!
http://potpolitics.com John Sullivan@POTPOLITICSâ„¢

Wow I’d like to harness all that brain power
I hope people go outside and get some FRESH AIR
awesome Blog/site.
Hope to get mine this happening one day Maybe
Peace
Stumbled

http://makeuseof.com Aibek

Thanks for the feedback

http://www.VoIP-Download.com/Skype.htm Skype Help

Another useful feature is that you can log-on with your user name only, eg you don’t need the whole GMail address:

“GeorgeBush” rather than “GeorgeBush@gmail.com”

Saves a bit of typing …

- S -
http://www.tsheets.com Time Tracker

I’m not sure the +thatwebsite features is still working. Gave it a try, and came up with an error.

@skype – thanks. and here I was typing the @gmail.com the whole time. nice one!
http://www.meroguff.com Navin

I already knew this
http://makeuseof.com Aibek

test comment … disregard it
http://thetotalnewbiesguide.com Donna Maher

VERY nice post – thanks for discovering & sharing this great tip – now I want to test it & enjoy the extended capabilities.

Joyous holidays to you & yours
http://thetotalnewbiesguide.com Donna Maher

Thanks Aibek for this cool tip – I’d not yet heard of it, and just tested it (and read Google’s TOS about it) and sure enough, I got the mail without the dot, and with the + but when I added a numeral, it didn’t arrive.

Joyous holidays to you & all,
Donna
George Philip

Good One.
George Philip, Elevatta
kimrich

Looking at all these contentious posts about an attempt by their author(s) to be helpful and thereby increase website traffic, I’m reminded that human nature has not changed since sapiens evolved… and also that the colonization of space by a species such as ours is unlikely to produce a net gain in the quality of life in the universe.

Personally I thought the tips were great. Thank You. And I await the scathing observations of the angry few about even these comments.
Arun

No it doesnt work anymore. The periods are not working. Gmail recognizes johndoe@gmail.com and john.doe@gmail.com as two separate email addresses, just like all the other mail services out there. But the + does work though.

joequincy

as the proud owner of the ahem.fake@gmail.com address, I can assure you that I receive emails sent to ahemfake@gmail.com just fine and dandy.

Also, if you actually considered sending an email to ahem.fake@gmail.com after reading that, please reach over and turn off your modem. I don’t want you on my internet >.<

WTF

I heard the “Something you haven’t heard of before” speech many times and this time the result wasn’t different: heard about it before, by people who knew they weren’t the only ones. Good trip but instead of naming it that way just name it: “Awesome Gmail Trick” or something like that. Ny the way: awesome trick.
http://cadreinc.com Gerry

Wow. I see it as a MAJOR ‘aw shit’ potential. Once Spammers see/understand this then they will send you ‘n!’ emails instead of one. Bet gMail closes down this vulnerability.
http://www.funhighway.com spellathon

excellent feature !!
http://techlime.com Amit

Nice Tips

Thanks
http://avidanthesane.lefora.com/forum Avidan The Sane

Good one!
a

“Gmail tip you don’t know about”

wrong. This is old.
http://www.thisisbrokenblog.com Kevin @ This is Broken Blog

Already knew this, seriously.
http://www.Ramcomtech.com Rod

Just stumbled across this Gmail feature… thanks for posting it!
Mr.Obvious

To all the idiots who say “omg i already know this’, or “dude this sh*t is hella old!” this article was posted back in Sept of 2007. So don’t pat yourselves on the back and think you’re all L337 ninja mofos..
http://exploremoneyonline.blogspot.com Mark

I followed the said statement on the blog but it doesn’t work. Why it is so…
http://dota-strategic.blogspot.com/ josh

same with mark before me, that its not working but thanks for the information
http://robinferianto.com robb

i know i’ve read this stuff somewhere before.
thx for bringing this up.
nice info.
http://happy-making.blogspot.com Heather Kephart

Freaking awesome! Thanks for passing this along.
Marcelle McGhee

Thanks for the gmail tips. I plan to set this up immediately.
http://www.wanderingeducators.com/marketplace/apparel/do-mbt-shoes-really-work.html jessiev

THANK you! i appreciate this. and wonder why it took me a few yrs to find it? yikes! thanks again.
Nikki Appleby

Well, I haven’t heard of this tip, and it sounds great.

I also hadn’t heard of makeuseof.com, it also looks great.

I wanted to print a guide, but I have to join. I know, I thought, I’ll make use of that tip that I just read. So where my email is first.last@gmail.com, I entered first.last+makeuseof@gmail.com

Result? Invalid email address.

Oops? (It’s either you or me, and for a change I don’t think it’s me).
http://makeuseof.com Aibek

not every web services accepts such emails. While it seems our subscription provider doesn’t most online services do accept emails in such format.
http://www.aestheticsmanagement.com ecommerce web development

Wow. I see it as a MAJOR â€˜aw shitâ€™ potential. Once Spammers see/understand this then they will send you â€˜n!â€™ emails instead of one.
muretu

Nice idea
http://www.volpet.com Table Diff

Really really useful. Thanks for the tip!

Get the best MakeUseOf articles in your email for free.
Access Exclusives. Over 400,000 subscribers!

More Subscribe Options