Published in: Gmail

Gmail Plus Address is a very useful trick to save your mailbox from spam. And if you ever get spammed, you know exactly which website / online service leaked your email address to spammers.

Gmail Plus Address

So what is a Gmail Plus address? Say you have an email address like billgates@gmail.com . If you append a “plus” sign to your email username, Gmail will ignore anything written between the + and @ sign in the email address and still deliver the message to the same mailbox.

So any email address sent to billgates+microsoft@gmail.com or billgates+blog@gmail.com or billgates+website@gmail.com will still reach the Gmail inbox of billgates@gmail.com inbox though, technically, they are three different email aliases.

Thus, when you share your email with some non familiar service, like a newsletter, you can supply your existing email with a plus sign - like billgates+websitename@gmail.com . If you ever receive spam addressed to that email alias, you know the exact source that’s sending the spam and can easily block all emails using a GMail filter.

Gmail Dot Blindness

Gmail is blind to dots (or periods) in your email address. You can place any number of dots in your email username and they’ll still land in your inbox.

Going back to the previous address, bill.gates@gmail.com , bi.ll.gates@gmail.com and billgates@gmail.com are seen as the same email address by Gmail but other services may see them as separate email address.

You can use this technique to register multiple email accounts in online services that require unique email address per account. For instance, if you ever need to create multiple accounts on Twitter, the Gmail Dot trick is the way to got.

Gmail Address Alias

There’s one more Gmail address trick that may come handy.

When you create a Gmail account, you actually get two email addresses - one is the regular @gmail.com address while the second email address has @googlemail.com in the domain.

That means if your email address in Gmail is something like billgates@gmail.com , all email messages that are sent to billgates@googlemail.com will also be delivered to your own Gmail account. That’s two for the price of one.

Like the Gmail plus trick, you can take advantage of these two domains so that less spam reaches your Gmail mailbox. For instance, give the @googlemail.com address to your close contacts (put that in the visiting card) while keep the @gmail.com address for public (put it on your blog). Then set a Gmail filter such that all email messages with @googlemail.com in the header go a special folder so you will never miss important email from close friends.

And if you multiple Twitter accounts, associate one with your main @gmail.com address and the other with your new @googlemail.com address.