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89 Comments
- melmyfinger, on 10/12/2007, -2/+69Old news but great tip.
One thing that sucks about this is some registration forms reject the plus sign (+) as a special character.
Another thing you can do is add dots into your gmail address. For example, feed.monster@gmail.com will still route email to the original feedmonster@gmail.com. You can go nuts with it too... f.e.e.d.m.o.n.s.t.e.r@gmail.com will also work. - Tiabin, on 10/12/2007, -4/+53I bet spammers read digg too. Damn you spammers!!!
- abid786, on 10/12/2007, -0/+37But spammers would eventually get smart enough and figure out that a gmail address with a "+" is really a trick. So if your email is abcd@gmail.com and you sign up to xyz.com as abcd+123@gmail.com, the spammers will mail you at abcd@gmail.com not abcd+123@gmail.com.
- nreynolds, on 10/12/2007, -5/+40Ya, except GMail really ***** up with those dots. I don't know if they still allow it but a person I don't know and myself have the exact same email address except for the dots. I'm not gunna tell you either of ours but it's basically -
him = emailaddress@gmail.com
me = e.mail.address@gmail.com
Often I get emails intended for him and it's a real pain. It's really weird and really annoying and I hope they've fixed it (unless somehow it was just a problem for me and this guy). - ascheinberg, on 10/12/2007, -1/+30Um... not a "quirk" as the article says. This is part of the SMTP standard. Unfortunately, many mail servers don't support it anyway, and not many people know about it.
- kihaji, on 10/12/2007, -1/+28It's not a quirk of gmail, it's a part of the SMTP standard. All email servers can, if set up correctly, have this feature.
- kunjan1029, on 10/12/2007, -4/+31It is not a gmail thing. Its *specified* in the RFC for email. AFAIK, all email systems that confirm to the RFC will support this.
Cant believe 400+ diggs and no one has said this already. - MrUnknown, on 10/12/2007, -2/+24Explain that to the guy sharing my email address without the dot. Google wont reply to me and so far I know he is a lawyer (newsletter), uses Hertz car rental (got a confirmation email) and get personal email from his friends.
edit: you're not alone nreynolds - VeganG, on 10/12/2007, -2/+23I didn't know about that dot issue. That's really disconcerting.
- CaveMike, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18Man, pinky is not going to be happy to get all of that spam.
- Terc, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19I believe the issue was fixed. Sort of. You can no longer register an address that has a duplicate when ignoring the dots. Still, for the people that registered before the fix... I doubt there will be a solution It WAS beta just to be fair.
- jawbreaker4fs, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17Isn't that... exactly what the article says?
Did you RTFA? - mc7winkie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15Who's agitatin' my dots?
- cobalt137cc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15@ nreynolds:
Gmail corrected this bug by no longer letting users register accounts that only differ in dots. The only problem is I don't think they corrected email accounts that were already in existence.
Read more here: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060120-6022.html - brundlefly76, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15'It WAS beta just to be fair.
gmail is still in beta.
the eternal beta is googles method of unaccountability - BionicBeefpile, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12I hadn't heard of this before, and it's great. I especially like the "see who is spamming you" recommendation. Even though GMail is the best free webmail service for filtering spam, when it does get through I'd like to know who's responsible.
- Paal, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12hehe, i used to use this trick to set up multiple accounts on facebook...
- mikm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Are you sure? If you have foo.bar@gmail.com, google will blockany body from using foobar@gmail.com
- slantyeyed, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11an oldie, but a goodie, simply classic . . . for the new kids in the class
- Paal, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11yup, my college has a similar email system
- t3hSmartKid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9this+is+awesome!
- Escamillo, on 10/12/2007, -6/+14"It WAS beta just to be fair."
Maybe, but still unbelievably stupid.
Besides, that's not an excuse for Google. For Google, beta means RTM. (MS is at the other extreme, where RTM means beta. ;-)) - hobbsy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Alernatively buy your own domain name (for a measly $1.99 or so) and then use that for all your newsletters/forms you sign-up to:
ie:
spam@yourdomain.com
bbc@yourdomain.com
newsletter@yourdomain.com
etc
it's also interesting to see who sells on your email address (even when you've ticked a box not to allow it!) - cawpin, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10Ok people...this isn't a Google only "feature". It is a part of the email specification. A plus sign (+) is a legal character for email addresses. It is just that most email services don't allow it. Google desided to and, woohoo, they get credited with "inventing" something.
- geocar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@capwin
Exactly which parts of RFC821 or RFC822 say that everything after a plus sign is ignored in addressing; or that local parts with a plus sign ignore the plus sign and everything after it?
As far as I know, the first MTA to do this was qmail, and that was in 1996, and it used the - character and not the +. Postfix, some years later, chose +, probably for no reason except it wasn't -. - ToadX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Don't think this is going to prevent spam. Eventually when this feature becomes more well known, if spammers have your something+other@gmail.com address, they'll just strip out the part after the +, and be e-mailing you at your regular e-mail address (and you won't be able to filter it out).
- dharm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5this has been on digg multiple times.
its in actual help section of gmail.
this feature existed and was fully documented at dawn of gmail. - carotids, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Old news is right. Here is the same tip that was buried after 100+ diggs a long time ago.
http://digg.com/tech_news/ONE_gmail_account_equals_UNLIMITED_throw_away_email_addresses_ - williamhelmick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I don't know about keeping track of who sells your email, but there's still an easy way to ensure ALL spam goes where it should (to hell). Just give obviously legit people specialized addresses, email+family@gmail.com, email+school@gmail.com, etc. You could still even use email+spam for suspicious sites. All you have to do is send everything WITHOUT a plus to the trash, so even if spammers try to be smart and parse out the +spam part, it will still end up in the trash.
Genius. I will have to do this. - sw0rdfish, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7very VERY old
- webcrumb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3You posted your email address on Digg? Is that wise?
- reject, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Thanks, kihaji. Didn't know they could.
- tempusrob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I think you're misunderstanding the problem. You can't *send* from these "unlimited" addresses, just recive mail via them. So, like the article says, I can give some shady website myemail+shady@gmail.com and automatically have it filtered to my trash when stuff arrives at that address.
- McGrude, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Wow welcome to the smtp protocol. OLD.
- gd007, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2i really like the way to detect spam websites. but what if they(gmail) disable this in future?
- mbourgon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Throw more DoTs more DoTs more DoTs!
- b04155, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I used to trade emails back and forth with a guy from england with my same name. we both found it funny and were honest enough to share... at least i think so..
- dgp1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2My school's system supports the + too, and I tried using myname+something@mycollege.edu to sign up an additional account on Facebook, and Facebook wouldn't allow it, saying the + was an illegal character.
So that didn't work for me. They must have fixed it.
just my $0.02
-dp - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'm in High School and I have a facebook, you don't need a college email, just an invite.
- dayquil, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2anyone who you could have once taken action against with this "tool" has known about it for a long time.
that doesn't change its usefulness - it's extremely simple and useful to make sure things related to work are filtered appropriately, having bills channeled to a certain folder, or whatever floats your boat. Just don't expect that it's going to make it so you can tell where your spam is coming from, because the folks who are selling your address got wise a long, long time ago.
And for clarity, this is not gmail-specific. Somebody probably already said that. - Linh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This is nice and all... but google is missing strong filtering abilities. I use gmail for my personal domain (just forwards, unless google wants to convert my account) as well as a backup for work related things.
my work email forwards a copy to gmail. no matter what I use as that forward, gmail filters cannot pick it up. The address is in the headers... so you should be able to filter it.. but unless I missed something, you can't.
fastmail.fm does all this very very well. But it's not enough to keep me from using google, but it's something I think can be added in. - robertgoodwin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2From the Gmail Help Center:
Am I receiving someone else's email?
Gmail doesn't recognize dots (.) as characters within a username. This way, you can add and remove dots to your username for desired address variations. messages sent to your.username@gmail.com and y.o.u.r.u.s.e.r.n.a.m.e@gmail.com are delivered to the same inbox, since the characters in the username are the same.
Keep in mind that hyphens (-) and underscores (_) can't be used in a Gmail address. Also, usernames are case insensitive, so it doesn't matter if you enter upper case or lower case letters.
If you created your account with a dot in your username and you wish you hadn't, you can change your 'Reply-to address.' To change your reply-to address:
1. Click 'Settings' at the top of any Gmail page.
2. Enter your username@gmail.com without a dot in the 'Reply-to address' field.
3. Click 'Save Changes.'
When you log in to Gmail, you need to enter any dots that were originally defined as part of your username. - geocar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@sirket
I don't deny this. I just reject all these posts saying ``It is a part of the email specification'' or ``it's a part of the SMTP standard.'', or ``it's a standard smtp thing. it won't be disabled.''
Making mail addressed to `foo+bar' the same as mail addressed to `foo+baz' isn't part of any internet standard, and appears to have originated with Qmail in 1995 or 1996. I'm not familiar with any mailer that supported this kind of addressing with any recommended or published configuration prior to this.
So I reject that saying "it's a standard" means that this is obvious. It isn't obvious. What's clear is that anyone who thinks ``It's in the standard scumbag.'' hasn't read the standard, and doesn't know how Internet mail works. - GrayOne, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Incamail.com used to call this a disposable email address.
You would have a base address (sample@incamail.com) when you were logged in you would hit create new address (Family). Then there would be a tab that was labeled family and anyone that emailed sample.family@incamail.com would show up there. Incamail was bought by ebay and then later shutdown without warning.
Edit: Florian above explains the bottom much better than I can.
The gmail dot thing sucks if you don't know about it. I registered andrew.m.gray@gmail.com and the deleted the account thinking I could reregister without the dots. Unfortunately andrew.m.gray@gmail.com is the same as andrewmgray@gmail.com and I won't be able to reregister it for 9 months. Even though email from andrew.m.gray@gmail.com and andrewmgray@gmail.com went to my inbox, it would only let me log on with the dots. - serra, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Wow, there's someone out there that doesn't have Gmail yet? I have 100 invites, let me know if you need one, since pretty much anyone who has Gmail probably has 100 invites stored up.
- comedianX, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3OK... stop dots.
- Tawni, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'll give some out I have 200 invites or so. Send an email to TawnyRosen@gmail.com
- slicedoranges, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Been on the front page before.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5how? don't you need a college e-mail?
- Amything, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I like www.dodgeit.com.
If you need to put in an email for something like registering for a blog or download or whatever, put YOURNAME@dodgeit.com and you can check the mail at www.dodgeit.com without registering. Look at the spam@dodgeit.com mailbox for example http://www.dodgeit.com/run/checkmail?mailbox=spam -
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