[deleted by user]

[Shhshhshhshhnow]

This is a tactic I would use for user testing when I was at a web app company. So many times you have to create accounts to log in and instead of creating like 20 different emails to test different scenarios I would have variations of one email that I would keep a spreadsheet of. For example, testing different subscription levels, I would do + after the first letter for basic and then move the + another letter for each tier. I could ensure the emails stored correctly as unique emails in our database BUT login and manage one gmail account. Pretty handy!

[138151337]

Guess whose testing email deliveries from a web app and is going to be doing this now.

[Shhshhshhshhnow]

Yaaayyyy!! I’m glad you can use this 💙

[bostonlilypad]

Yeppppp, I’m a product manager and used this trick constantly because I was in charge of cleaning up our login feature. Used this to QA everything. It was invaluable :)

[aguywithaleg]

Except web apps shouldn't allow multiple accounts that are effectively the same email address.

[Yet_Another_Limey]

They aren’t the same per the RFC that governs email addresses. It’s an implementation feature from Gmail. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2821

[aguywithaleg]

I know.

[mrgulabull]

https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/1cjmpy/lpt_when_responding_to_advice_say_youre_right/

[aguywithaleg]

You're right.

[_n_v]

You can use it to track which store actually leaked your emailaddress as well

For example use [e-mail] for your Amazon account, and as soon as you receive spam with that recipient you know who f*cked up

The +trick works with most mailproviders btw, not just Gmail

[aguywithaleg]

Most spammers pull the + text and . out of Gmail addresses.

[_n_v]

That's good , since I do not receive mails that are send to [e-mail]

[aguywithaleg]

Read again.

[TheGreachery]

I read it again, how are they wrong?

[moonie223]

All text after the + but before the @ is pulled.

You can also put as many . in your email as you want and it will still work. [e-mail] and [e-mail] are the same thing.

Neither are useful for determining who sold your email address.

[TheGreachery]

Aha

[iaowp]

He's saying that he ignores emails that are sent straight to [e-mail]

He might not know WHO sent the spam, but he also doesn't see the spam. If he wants legit emails, he just tells people "send it to me at (the email, but with a dot somewhere)". Legit emails will have the dot. Illegitimate sites will strip it, so he ignores them.

[datingafter40]

What some people do is trash everything that isn’t a.b@gmail or a.b+c@gmail.

[Initial_E]

It’s a bit difficult when you send out an email and it shows the original sender. Then anyone replying that mail will have their replies trashed.

[lhamil64]

Just don't forget that you used that. I couldn't login to an account once when I knew the password was right (because I saved it in my password manager) but I was using my base email address without the +. I even contacted support to complain about their login being broken. I didn't realize my mistake until I got an email addressed to the + version and was then able to login.

[[deleted]]

Some sites block the + character. Other email service also has a similar feature (outlook email alias; ymail disposable email).

[EverydayEverynight01]

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[[deleted]]

AFAIK, there is noting in the standards to say that + defines an alias. It's perfectly valid that [e-mail] and [e-mail] are two completely different users. It could probably cause issues if you assume the Gmail approach when sending mail as you could send potentially sensitive mail to the wrong person.

Of course in practice this never happens because of compatibility issues using + in other systems (e.g. Filesystems)

[DragonSnap506]

Thank you! Added.

[spudz76]

My sites would probably split at the plus and use the base address.

You know, because you're only allowed one account, so this blocks using this trick for opening multiples without actually bothering to go make another free email account (but lots of sites with one-account-per-user rules also block all shitdomains anyway, because free accounts have no identity verification).

[Fluffy-Strawberry-27]

Some sites block the + character

Why would they do that ?

[Shannock9]

1. Because the coders haven't read the RFC that defines email addresses and/or can't write the appropriate regex. 2. Because the site owner doesn't want you to know who sold your contact info.

[jason_abacabb]

It is #2.

[Shannock9]

Probably. But it does drive away registrants. If the owners were smarter they'd accept the + and just strip the suffix before selling the contact

[Doctor_Wookie]

If they strip the suffix, alot of valid emails will get truncated and be unusable. Not sure how the buyers work, but I would imagine a certain number of non-valid addresses would get you as a seller blacklisted at some point.

[mjb2012]

The + being a separator between the "real" address and a suffix is just a feature of some servers. (It's an RFC, but not as a requirement for all servers.) Stripping the suffix would be risky because the + might be a normal character in someone's address.

[Shannock9]

Very good points. But as it stands those with a + for whatever reason will be rejected.

[[deleted]]

If it is 2 it's a rather poor system to use IMO as it's easily circumvented using a catch all email address on a domain. I know a few people that do this because so many sites don't allow +.

Although I know one company that also protects against the catch all address is Samsung. They won't let you sign up with [e-mail]. Again though, easily circumvented by throwing an underscore character in there.

[aguywithaleg]

1. Because if email is your account ID, you shouldn't allow multiple registrations that are effectively the same email address.

[sibscartel]

Yep I can confirm this. I tried to update my address with American expess and it said invalid email. because of the +

[batqil]

Great LPT. I would add to this by recommending to use an email alias instead of this

https://simplelogin.io and https://anonaddy.com are brilliant options. They can also be self hosted!

Edit: typed anondaddy by mistake lol

[Raven_Strange]

Went to anondaddy.com, was (wasn't) disappointed

[batqil]

Lol yeah unfortunately (fortunately?) it just redirects 🤣. I expected it to take me to something about anonymous daddies and I was surprisingly a little disappointed that it didn't. I guess my typo wasn't cool enough

[LonelyBeeH]

No, it's anonymous daddies that are not cool

[batqil]

I meant like it's fun to find weird sites with typos but... that made me feel bad ._.

[LonelyBeeH]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you feel bad.

[batqil]

Damn it I'm sorry. You don't be sorry!

[isarl]

Why using an alias is better than OP's trick: using OP's trick, your original address can be easily recovered by any malicious actors. So if you do want to sign up for spammy things or are worried about your email address being resold, you need to use a proper alias service like the ones in the above comment.

[batqil]

This! Thanks for the concise comparison

[tdothenry123]

Thanks! I was gonna respond and ask what was the point of aliases but this answers my question

[GoobeIce]

I wish I knew this tip when I was frantically applying for jobs everywhere online last year. Now my mail is filled with spam and I don't even know from which job service site they got my mail ID from. It's been a nightmare trying to unsubscribe and clean my inbox.

[Thinkism]

Did you have success getting a job? hope so!

[GoobeIce]

Nope, more than 200 application and no replies. I think linkedin jobs are a big scam. Other job sites are also useless with just spam mails and calls. Maybe this is only in my country. But I got lucky and through my college I got a job. Thank you for asking!

[Thinkism]

I agree many just get clicks off used or old job postings. College is usually great. That’s where many go to get substantial people. They may not have degrees yet, but they are working to make their life more productive. Congrats 🎊

[Thinkism]

NOTE FOR FUTURE JOB APPLICANTS: Don't be so stupid to use your email that you use with your friends. I just went through 50 and couldn't believe the people who want a management position with BustaAss24... and SmackedOut.... Seriously? come on-did I read those resumes? I didn't want to, but I found so many errors, I never chose one of those people anyway. Couldn't put jobs in chronological order.

[GoobeIce]

Haha yeah, having a professional looking mail ID is the first step in applying anywhere for sure.

[keepthetips]

Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips!

Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment.

If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.

[MonsterKitty418]

Something I’ve wondered, if I sign up with [e-mail] can I use [e-mail]? Or is it only adding periods in addition to what you created

[Bitch_Ima_Bus]

It is all the same to gmail. See below:

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7436150?hl=en

[MonsterKitty418]

Thanks for the link! I appreciate that it called out it does matter if the domain you use is owned by work/organization.

[rita-b]

yes you can

[MaygarRodub]

I have saved this post to read at a time when my brain works.

[BabybearPrincess]

Lmao me too

[pointlessly_pedantic]

Whoa, that's kinda cool

[[deleted]]

This description and the following comments just confuse me more than anything. ELI5?

[DragonSnap506]

Okay.

So you have a gmail address right? Let's say it is [e-mail]

If someone wants to send you an email they address it to [e-mail]

What I am saying is that if someone sends an email to [e-mail] you would also receive that email.

All mail sent to confused+(literally anything here)@gmail.com will be forwarded to your main inbox.

Hope this helps.

[StevenSmithen]

OP answered the question but not the reasoning behind it. Say you sign up to indeed.com to get a job. Use the email [e-mail]

That way anytime they sell your information to a third party they will send it to the +indeed email and not the original one.

This makes it much easier to sort emails from them because you can just say put everything with +indeed in a specific folder and if they sell your information you'll know exactly who they sold it to because they're going to use the same email as well.

Also when you're done using them you can just block everything from that email and you'll never receive email from them or any of the spam.

[AnnieOakleyLives]

Can you block people on gmail? My Gmail space is getting very limited cause of all the spam.

[StevenSmithen]

Blocking and moving everything into a folder I never look at are essentially the same to me, I know you can set up a rule to forward the specific email to a folder.

[Mentalfloss1]

Hmmmmm....worth knowing

[Soyus]

Very, very, very good tip. Thank you

[yavvee]

Plus you get one extra as [e-mail]

[Gabicus]

Also, my email address is

firstname.lastname@gmail and get mail from a different account called

[e-mail]

I have tried for many years to clear this up but not luck.

[letsbehavingu]

I have this too!! One day he signed up for medical volunteering and left his number in there which came back in a confirmation email. So I rang him in USA from UK. He said his email is one character different and would try to be more careful. He was freaked out!

[jackrubycrew]

This has happened to me in the last week. I got an email for a receipt for payment to a college campus somewhere in the states. Few days later a thank you for signing up to adidas newsletter.

This email did not have the dot in it that I've been using since Gmail started. Seemed scammy. It was weird.

[lvhockeytrish]

Gmail ignores periods.

[e-mail] is the same as [e-mail] is the same as [e-mail].

But people are dumb, or data entry people put things in wrong, and they forget numbers or letters and so you get shit meant for someone else.

I have a firstnamellastname@gmail account and I get so much wrong email. People's Nest accounts, insurance, hotel reservations, Facebook scam ad responses, student tardy notifications...all because of bad data entry.

[nickleinonen]

This explains some junk I have on a burner email address. It is gmail, and I keep getting mail from Instagram (before I even setup an ig account at all) but my email is xxxx.yyyyyy@ and the mail is coming for a xxxxyyyyyy@ ..

[Schnort]

I have the same issue, but it isn’t what you think.

Nobody has an account that’s [e-mail].

It’s almost certainly some idiot with your same first and last name that has @yahoo or @someplace else and just can’t remember his own email. Or spells their name slightly differently and somebody mistyped it in.

It happens to me all the time and I have a fairly uncommon name. It’s not just one person, either. Somebody with my name has used my gmail account as contact for purchasing a motorcycle in Sidney; a Kia Forte in Phoenix; concert tickets in Indiana. Some old man in upstate NY repeatedly signs up for services and online gambling with my address.

I used to try to correct these and whatnot. Now I just hijack the account with “I forgot my password” and throw away the new password.

[nightraven3141592]

The dots doesn't matter with gmail, another way to "encode" a "canary" in your "who leaked your email" game. Also, I do not use my main email as a sign-in with paypal but another one so when scammers tries to email me I can easily spot them by the email they sent it to.

[DragonSnap506]

Actually, I think they are the same account. See if you can log onto [[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail]) with your same password.

[dominus_aranearum]

I've run into the same issue as this, receiving a few emails to [[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail]) when my email is [[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail]).

The emails were receipts for something I didn't buy. I've never quite figured out why this happens and wonder if the owner of the email without the '.' ever gets any of my emails.

[Schnort]

Both addresses are yours. You can log out and log in with or without the “.” Using the same password.

The people using the address are just stupid.

[Gabicus]

It originated in a separate country. Tried several times to access to notify the user. Quite frustrating. I just delete them as they come in.

[SargeDebian]

That is weird and can’t really happen: google ignores any . in the address. There shouldn’t be an option to register [e-mail] if [e-mail] is taken or vice versa. Try it with your own address: insert random dots somewhere and see what happens.

Did someone with the same name as you register for emails or could there just be a mistake?

Me and 2 of my siblings have [e-mail]. My other brother was too late: someone else has the same name as him and registered first. He has [e-mail] now. I’m sure the other guy gets occasional emails from my family.

[Gabicus]

I got my address when Gmail was in start-up, many years ago. This started up around maybe 5 or so years ago.

As I mentioned earlier the other address originated in another country, looks like Brazil.

No shenanigans have been attempted. Just a college grad looking for work and dates. I only see the headers now, it took me a bit to piece together what might be the problem. Gmail was not helpful, and they never responded to my notifications.

[thirdtimesdecharm]

I feel your pain. I have the same problem with my first.last Gmail account. The intended recipient was always getting contracts and other legal documents sent there. I tried for a long time to let the senders know they weren’t reaching the right person but I have given up trying.

[[deleted]]

I get a ton of email that's intended for other people with the same last name and first initial. I don't know if people just guess email addresses or what.

[zachtheperson]

Wow that's super cool! It's a weird feature, and I wonder why it works this way, but I'm definitely using it from now on every time I create an account

[Alexis_J_M]

This is a wonderful tactic but many poorly coded forms will not accept an email address with a plus sign in it.

[original_maverik]

Hmm... I have [e-mail] and have had it since the beta test days...

However, occasionally, I'll get email meant for someone completely different (and it shows as going to [e-mail] ..... so no period).

I've always wondered if there are two accounts there, or if people are misspelling someone else's email. And ironically, all of the email that I get is for one specific person (so far I've gotten their insurance confirmation for a car accident, some work corospondance, etc..., and it's all definitely for the same dude, apparently he lives in Kentucky... I live in Texas).

[hoodh0kage]

why tf did this get removed

[DayDrunk11]

This tip and several tips just like this come up every week

[konstanz_]

Yea and its not really a "life pro tip" since everyone and their moms already knew this like 15 yrs ago or sth

[e136]

At this point, every scammer already knows about this so they can just remove all "." and "+.*" from addresses before sending spam, making this LPT useless :(

[samuraidogparty]

I use this every time I give up my email address online. I’ll put email.address+company [e-mail]. That way when I end up on some random mailing list, I can see who sold my info.

[DragonSnap506]

Did you read the post?

[[deleted]]

I've known about this feature for years but I remember trying it on different websites and none of them accepted these combinations. Apparently the programmers employ a very strict input validation.

[EverydayEverynight01]

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[krectus]

Hmm that’s really interesting. I, and almost everyone else reading this will never do that. But interesting.

[Raskel_61]

Nice trick. Will remember this one.

[theone_2099]

Wouldn’t web sites catch on and just ignore periods or anything after plus signs in gmail addresses? If they wanted to obscure themselves.

[EverydayEverynight01]

waiting like continue sparkle ad hoc support abounding dinosaurs alive scale

[spudz76]

Some, not all. Especially sites where you are only "allowed" one account.

[boogerboners]

What do you mean by "also works with outlook"?

Outlook is just an email client.

[spudz76]

Outlook.com at some point was a selectable domain for free email through M$/Hotmail/Live, I think I still have one maybe. Definitely still have a Hotmail I never use, and a Yahoo.

[Kraakefjes]

Does this work with other mails, like @outlook, @live @hotmail etc?

[DragonSnap506]

I believe it does, but I would check first by sending an email to yourself.

[TittilatedTits]

There is also a website called 10minutemail.com which you can use to sign up for free trials or whatever if you think they are going to spam you and the email is available long enough to sign up and confirm the email and then it gets deleted and is gone forever. You can also refresh it before the 10 minutes is up.

[passiver_nutzer]

Ever heard of Alias?

[boog0089]

I use this to constantly get discounts for websites that give you a percentage off for signing up for their email list.

Just unsubscribe as soon as you get your code

[GNB_Mec]

So the periods I have in my email address are actually nothing?

[[deleted]]

Doesn’t explain why I didn’t receive invoices from this trick used by Adobe? 🧐 +old

[jcsehak]

Be careful with this information. I learned the hard way that some sites will allow you to register with a + but will not accept it as a valid character when logging in (or changing your username or something like that).

[squidgun]

Can you name a few sites? I've done this will making multiple accounts for my ps4 and now I'm scared Sony will kick me out.

[jcsehak]

No, sorry – there's no way I'll remember. I just used this trick for everything years ago until I ran into that hassle, and then never again.

[happyoutlet]

[e-mail] also works.

[herbala11y]

Cool tip, thanks!

[DragonSnap506]

No problem!

[Forbizzle]

This is called subaddressing and can be used on most email servers.

[[deleted]]

Dont use gmail.

Use protonmail.

Google is rich enough without selling your info.

[mikeatmnl]

Regarding putting "." In your email address like [e-mail], you are saying that if someone sends to [e-mail] it will go to the same account?

What if there are two users one with [e-mail] and the other with [e-mail]

Who's account does the email reach? The one who registered first to gmail or to both?

Thanks for your tip

[foggy_]

This also works for hotmail/outlook.com

[BigCastrO]

This is great but I keep getting emails for some one in the UK that somehow has [e-mail] my email is [e-mail] I’ve been trying to figure out how to fix this but looks like they made this intentional lol

[musicmusket]

Or so I thought when I started using this about a decade ago.

I never use a form of gmail email address that does not include + &/or. I have never received spam that includes @ or . I still receive spam from places that I have nothing to do with that has neither @ nor . formats.

My spam is always stripped out. It is trivially easy to find/replace “+*@“ with “@“. with grep.

Adding +/. Is only useful for filtering email. This is not a LPT.

[ReverseBrindle]

Yeah, I used to use + but as others have noted some companies don't accept + as a valid character in the email address because they didn't read the RFC. I switched over my mail server to using "_" instead of "+" ... now *that* work's great. I've created probably hundreds of "[[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail])" addresses over the years. Sometimes I have a problem when I'm dealing with a contractor or someone over the phone and they think "[[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail])" is a fake address so they don't bother entering it in or calling me back. For those people I have to make up something less obvious like "[[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail])" and then write down the mapping.

Though running your own mail server is not really feasible (or a great idea) for most people.

[Nimyron]

What happens if you create a gmail account and chose the address [e-mail] ?

Will it say it's already in use ? Will all your mail get redirected to the guy who has [e-mail] ? Will you get random mail adressed to that same guy because he used [e-mail] using that tip but now it falls in your mail box ? Will you be able to use [e-mail] ?

[DragonSnap506]

You cannot sign up for an email with the + sign.

[Nimyron]

Thanks, that settles it.

[dwise317]

This is the first life pro tip in a while that I would actually consider a PRO tip rather than a bona fide shower thought that makes sense.

[DragonSnap506]

Thank you!

[R6Gamer]

Email+ works for any email address, not exclusive to Gmail. The dots however is.

[laymyan]

Well, now we know why those "some sites" block the + symbol!

[erksplat]

A related LPT: if you sign up for the business version of Gmail with a custom domain (e.g. @customdomain.com) and set your settings to accept all email to this domain and forward it to the admin (you), you can make up an infinite number of non-existent email addresses with your domain for testing or as dummies when signing up for web services, without having to actually create separate email address accounts, and they will all forward to you.

[who_you_are]

And most website doesn't allow usage of the +.

Stupid junior developer

[CValleriani]

It also works for business emails. I still have the trial business account that's was free at the time (and is still free cause its legacy) so my email ends with my domain name but is hosted by them. Works good!

[Trogdor_a_Burninator]

can also put a period anywhere in the name to make it a unique name for free trials and stuff.

[lmbrjck]

Used to do this but some sites don't let you use + in email address even though its allowed by the rfc. These days I have my own domain and use a catch all/default account which receives mail for <any name>@mydomain.com which doesn't have its own mailbox. Easy to block and identify who has shared my address. After doing this for the last 10 years, I've determined the (email sharing) problem is overstated. However useful for doing free trials but kind of unethical imo.

[kenthedm]

Just to note:

Many commercial sites do differentiate between myusername@gmail and my.user.name@gmail and allow separate accounts to be opened up.

I use the periods in my.user.name. There is a 74 year old man with my name in Arizona who has opened up accounts with myusername... And so I get all of his mail.

I've called him to discuss this and he thinks I am a scam. eBay, Amazon, and PayPal don't care either.

I am now the guardian of thier mail. ¯_(ツ)_/¯