Comments

You must log in or register to comment.

browsinglurker t1_iubqxpj wrote

Many sites are on to this option and will not validate an email with a + in it.

53

Wjyosn t1_iucj5zz wrote

Generally this is a matter of just bad email validation scripts that don't recognize symbols as being valid in emails. It's rarely a deliberate effort to thwart Gmail users specifically.

28

payfrit t1_iudzayi wrote

this isn't a gmail feature, most email providers let you do this.

2

Wjyosn t1_iuebyi7 wrote

If so, that's certainly news for me. Last time I tried, other email systems didn't automatically give users all of the aliases by default.

3

payfrit t1_iuecn3g wrote

i know one way to find out, send one to yourself to test it!

if it's in-house hosted email, there's a higher chance it won't work. but to the best of my knowledge all the "big-tech" public providers allow it as a feature.

we host our own email and they are enabled by default on our provider's software.

3

Unikatze t1_iubogtf wrote

I keep getting emails for someone with a similar email to mine. It's super annoying.

33

parkerposy t1_iubrxrt wrote

I've cancelled a few reservations lmao

18

Anencephalopod t1_iucr8j1 wrote

Same. Cancelled hotel reservations on the day of check-in so they had to pay anyway. Redirected a FedEx package to an outlet 200 miles away.

And yet she keeps using my email address for all her receipts and loyalty programs. Maybe she'll learn one day.

−4

CrankyOldDude t1_iud3rg6 wrote

Wow - that’s a genuinely awful thing to do. Someone accidentally used your email address for a period of time, and you cancelled their reservation the day of their stay? That’s just needlessly cruel.

You have limitless ways of reaching the people (including knowing the hotel they were staying at) - wouldn’t it have been less devastating to just leave a message at the hotel or something?

25

AnotherKourtney t1_iud8kie wrote

Please no need for being naive. I am in the same situation. Someone is using the same email address as mine when in reality their email address is 1 letter reducted version of mine. So either she writes the address wrong as "our" full name or others do that mistake I receive all her banking payment slips, professional emails etc.

I sent her an email explaining the situation and she mocked me and still continues to use my email address. NOW I am waiting for my day to come. They certainly don't deserve the considerate acts.

4

LetMeSayThis t1_iueddx0 wrote

Have you ever had to give your email address over the phone? It may not be their fault, but the person putting in the email address. Especially if their are language differences. You’re just being shitty.

1

Anencephalopod t1_iuf2bar wrote

It does sound terrible I know, but this wasn't out of the blue. My address is in the format firstname.lastname@emailprovider.com and not a difficult or particularly unusual combination of names, it's not easy to mess up. I snapped after years of getting signed up for things that she has obviously typed into a website herself. At one stage I was getting more mail for her than for me, and this is my main address that I've had for nearly 20 years. I've sent messages to her on various bits of social media begging her to be more careful and the only thing I got back once was a smirk emoji so...

1

LetMeSayThis t1_iugozcw wrote

I wanted to be mad, and say you were the one in the wrong. But you’ve changed my mind. That person is just being a turd.

1

snorom t1_iudbaab wrote

Same. Someone with my name will be really pissed off when they find out that I got all 4 reminders to pay the balance on their wedding suits last summer. I often wonder if they got it sorted!

8

robertintx t1_iue1x8p wrote

I've had a realtor send me a stack of closing docs, unencrypted with financials included. I emailed them to be more careful but no response.

2

Unikatze t1_iue29ua wrote

Yeah. I get school transcripts and car stuff for someone with the same email as me except it has a period between the names. They're not typing the email in wrong. It's just a weird and terrible Gmail thing.

1

robertintx t1_iue2l5a wrote

Yeah mine is first dot lastname@gmail. I get tons addressed to firstlastname

Gmail says I own both but somehow several people have variations on mine and I get their mail. Mskrs me wonder how much of my mail I'm missing.

1

DroolingSlothCarpet t1_iubf1ae wrote

Another day, another post about adding a plus sign or a period to Gmail.

22

SP3NGL3R t1_iubyna5 wrote

When I sell my email list I strip everything after the + and all dots too. So, crisis of reselling personal data eliminated.

-- I don't do this, nor even in the industry to do this. just saying ... those that are, they know all these tricks and just regex around it.

PS -- there are a tonne of email systems now that offer relays. Just use one of those. duckduckgo-mail or firefox-relay or mailinator or ... and on and on.

9

M-alMen t1_iucplno wrote

That is not that effective as peoples think it is, it can helps you with some amateurs spammers, but any professional spammers will for sure remove all extra strings from emails before spamming... The efective way of doing this (the one I use), is having a custom domain an use an total different aliás for each place

9

roybo5 t1_iubzgka wrote

Can you use this to get free trials too? Like making 50 Netflix accounts using different variations of one email?

3

ForAThought t1_iublprk wrote

This doesn't work for all sites. Most, but not all.

2

keepthetips t1_iub6fvl wrote

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.

1

theHurtfulTurkey t1_iubgny0 wrote

How does this avoid spam if it still delivers to your inbox?

1

BLParks12 t1_iubtui3 wrote

Can I ask what the point would be to create a new account if the email is going to end up in the main inbox anyway? I can see creating a new account to give if signing up for something so you don’t get spam emails to your main inbox. But I don’t understand the point of everything ends up in your main inbox anyway.

1

Sapphire580 t1_iubw3ba wrote

EG. If you sign up for a website that talks about widgets, and you use youremail+widgets@gmail.com then you start getting spam to that particular email, you’ll know the widget site sold your info. And any future emails you get after canceling those spam messages you’ll know came from people selling that email

10

Plan_nine t1_iucrbuq wrote

But what then? So you know who sold it (everyone), but how do you then stop that spam? Can you set a filter on the +widgets address?

3

Sapphire580 t1_iud23xf wrote

Honestly that I don’t know, what I use it for is I immediately stop using widget site to buy my widgets after I found out about their shady practices

2

witchyteajunkie t1_iuda85k wrote

Yes - you can set a filter to automatically delete anything to that address or direct it to a specific folder or send it to spam.

1

BLParks12 t1_iuc36q8 wrote

That makes perfect sense. Thank you for your explanation.

2

Wjyosn t1_iucjd1m wrote

You can make a rule to auto sort based on incoming address. So, everything sent to name+important@gmail goes to a specific folder, and everything sent to name+spam@gmail gets auto deleted, for instance

6

sunnykutta t1_iuc0h8j wrote

How exactly to make use of this if emails get delivered to you anyway?

1

Acebladewing t1_iuc4b0m wrote

And that helps how? Not like you can do jack shit about it just because you know where it came from.

1

witchyteajunkie t1_iudac4a wrote

You can set up filters to direct those emails to the trash or a spam folder and keep them out of your inbox.

0

Acebladewing t1_iuddg7u wrote

And then it will also filter the ones from the company that you originally provided that email address too.

1

ProKeyPresser t1_iuc5dm3 wrote

Spammer be like “let’s remove anything after the + sign”.

… and you are still screwed.

1

Ayeager77 t1_iucm8fh wrote

Easier LPT that doesn’t hope that email validations allow this trick. Create a similar but new gmail just for spam. OG email would be hello@gmail.com. Spam email would be Hellospam@gmail.com. Now all spam email goes to an entirely different email account you can purge at will in cycles. Use it for site registrations when you only want to access it once. Use it for newsletters. Use it for giveaways. It is as easy as a single click to swap between gmail accounts on iOS, Android, and PC.

1

Murph-Dog t1_iud41a0 wrote

We are lucky spammers haven't used this against us.

Spammer sees that you're a +'r, and commences randomization of the + segment forever and always.

Filter that!

This really isn't meant for much more than a dev-tool.

1

FBJYYZ t1_iudax12 wrote

Or you can created an Anonaddy account to ensure mail NEVER gets to your inbox once you hit the off switch.

1

Belzeturtle t1_iudt3ol wrote

This doesn't create multiple accounts. It's still one account with multiple address aliases.

1

payfrit t1_iudzf9w wrote

fyi this is not just a gmail feature, most major email services and servers will let you do this.

try it and find out, email yourself.

1

max122345677 t1_iue7mq3 wrote

How often do we have to read this tip still? Isnt it enough at some point?

1

Megamix_MMX t1_iuexbzb wrote

or you can make multiple Gmail accounts using the YouTube method

1

PuckStar t1_iufa9xq wrote

Those are not accounts but aliases.

1

[deleted] t1_iubi0oa wrote

[deleted]

−1

Taysir385 t1_iubjm14 wrote

Ok, I'll bite.

Why?

0

[deleted] t1_iubl2u6 wrote

[deleted]

−1

The_Casual_Scribbler t1_iubn0cv wrote

How could you receive someone’s emails with this? It is true btw but I don’t see how it puts anyone at risk.

3

Taysir385 t1_iubomw0 wrote

I suspect he thinks that you could sign up for a 'different' google account using periods, not realizing that Google won't let you do that.

2