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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.


barrycarter

This is the first time I've seen someone include all 3 "hacks" (the googlemail, the dots and the plus) all in one message!


Independent-Case-306

Well, I like to think of myself as the ultimate life hack guru, or as my friends call me, the MacGyver of the internet.


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fielausm

That was THE best Easter Egg in 'Homecoming' *No Way Home. My bad


bankholdup5

No way home


fielausm

Not with that attitude


PassiveMangoes

Hell yeah


DM_ME_CUTE_PICS_PLZ

Why was i the only one who laughed in my theatre


Hetstaine

I was the only one who laughed at the propeller guy in Titanic. Release night, packed cinema, awkward.


SuperBearsSuperDan

Reminds me of my buddy. When watching 300, he started busting out laughing when the captain’s son got his head chopped off. Totally normal and great kid, but just saw something hilarious about that particular decapitation.


brocjames

Glad I wasn’t the only one. The “ahhhhhh!” dooong! then silence was to much.


ThatDudeDeven1111

I was at my cousin's funeral listening to the eulogy when an ice cream truck decided to beat traffic and cut across the cemetery. Idk if he meant to leave the jingle on, but it was on. I couldn't contain myself.


i3uu

Hold your horses! Easter isn't for another few weeks, bub!


naughtyobama

r/notOPButOk


workthrowaway390

LPT: Separate your LPT's into multiple posts to get more karma


WechTreck

Then post (how to remove the dots and pluses, and replace "@googlemail" with "@gmail", so your spam gets through) to /r/illegallifeprotips for even more dirty karma /s


iHateRollerCoaster

Regex


WechTreck

*Some people, when committing a crime, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two crimes.* ^(Apologies to JWZ)


Whitestrake

Why would you regex this? You can just do string substitution, much more efficient.


Apollo_Katelo

The "googlemail" hack is a big plus, period.....


gettinbymyguy

The dots thing is so annoying. My dad made my Gmail for me in 2008. It's "first name . Last name @ gmail.com ". A lady with my same name made hers without the "." . Since I kept getting her receipts from her mechanic I was able to figure out who she was on Facebook. I told her what was happening and asked for a different email I could forward her stuff to. She said she would get a new account, but never did. This is so annoying cause I've had that email since middle school and have so many diary entries saved, but now I might have to get rid of it.


chewby14

She didn't made the same adresse without the ".", it's not possible. She just gave a wrong email to her mechanic.


[deleted]

Some people don't understand how email works. These people will automatically assume [email protected] is "their" email address; without ever having created a Google account.


blue-mooner

This is absolutely correct, but I didn’t believe it until I met me wife. My gmail is an internet handle I used ~20 years ago and I get zero unexpected emails. But my wife knew people at Google in 2004 and managed to get [email protected] . Her first name isn’t that common, but she still gets dozens of emails every day from people she’s never heard of: love letters, invoices, resumes, signups for sites she’s never visited. It’s wild how many people either think they have her email or don’t communicate it well to others.


Professor_Hexx

my SO and I both have the first letter of first name then last name @gmail.com. Our last names aren't common. we each have 2-3 "clones" that refuse to understand that they don't have that email. I've gotten reservation confirmations, job search results, even an email from a lawyer (which I replied to and notified the lawyer about the issue... didn't help). They've been doing this for YEARS. My SO gets internet bills for some guy that he doesn't pay because he doesn't get them and then she gets his disconnect notices, etc. She can't do anything about it because his account is tied to his phone, not email. People are dumb.


somdude04

I've gotten college admissions acceptances.


[deleted]

Did you attend your class?


Ashenfall

I have firstnamelastname as my Gmail, and get enough misdirected emails from that for my liking. Quite a few sites don't do proper email verification, though I guess that's the result of the increase in 'guest checkout' use in recent years.


superfsm

I also got an early invitation to gmail I get emails from all over the world. I even contacted Google as I had access to bank info, PayPal, legal documents, all kind of bills, everything No-one gave a fuck


monchavo

I share my name with: - A very, very famous designer - An Australian photographer - An NFL footballer from the early 2000s - An American douchebag lawyer and "entrepreneur" My gmail is *fascinating*


miluti

This is such a rabbit hole challenge that I DESPERATELY want to solve. I may try to when I have more time. 🙈😋


rainbow84uk

Yeah I have [email protected] and regularly get emails for people with the same name. One of them feels like my weird American alter ego – I've seen every aspect of her life through misdirected emails about college admissions, job interviews, wedding planning, and most recently her divorce papers!


Marty1966

Same exact scenario. It's weird how random it is though I can go months without a single misdirected email and that I get pictures from the person's niece.


Hetstaine

When we order pizza we also use a fake email. [email protected], [email protected] etc.


cruel_delusion

It's not a fake address. It's just not yours. People have done that using my Gmail and I just contact the restaurant and added $200 with of extra items.


foxpaws42

I’ve done similar things to get people to stop handing my email out as theirs: Initiate password reset, log into their account, cancel their event tickets or dinner reservations, etc. (Any refunds go back to their payment method, so I’m not stealing or causing financial damage, just messing with their plans.) Since they don’t own the email address, they can’t perform a password reset to take their account back. After enough cancelled events and reservations, the other folks appear to get the hint because the emails eventually stop. …only for some other rando to do the same thing, and I roll up my sleeves again.


[deleted]

JFC. At least use a bogus domain so you aren’t fucking with someone’s email address.


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JustinHopewell

What's your favorite Michael Bolton song?


LeatherDude

Oh I dunno, I guess I kinda like em all


andrewharlan2

I'm appalled that folks go on their merry ways without knowing the passwords to their primary Google or Apple accounts


qning

I really want to know if this is true. But I don’t want to know that it is.


Hetty_Green

Can confirm. My mom made her Gmail almost 15 years ago with her first initial and last name. She gets stuff for people that have the same initial and last name(it's not even a super common last name) all the time. One she replied to the sender because it was something that looked important and they eventually confirmed the person they wanted just assumed it was their email address but had no idea how email actually worked


[deleted]

Oh, it's true. Sign up for _any_ email provider with a common name and you will receive other people's email by the bucketload.


BloodBlizzard

My name isn't that common and I've gotten mortgage paperwork with personal information on it, employment offers for jobs I never applied to, private correspondence that from a university meant for staff, and tons of account sign ups, it's crazy.


EricTheNerd2

Sorry but I am going to let you know it does work this way. I was getting all these emails sent to me about mortgages I was applying for. I've seen that was a victim of identity theft until I went into one to emails was able to log into the account since they used my email address and found out somebody with the exact same name as me was using my email address for all of their accounts.


sgarn

I got into gmail early through an invite, and while neither my first or last name are very common, they're common enough that I'm up to about a dozen namesakes I've been mistaken for. I'll reply if it looks like something important that they'll miss, but it's got to the point where I just ignore it most of the time. Lately I've been getting eBay notifications for someone who used my address without the dot, which I wouldn't have thought would be possible.


CrimsonShrike

I get some dude's ISP notices in basque because he keeps signing up with wrong email.


jinsaku

Definitely. I was in the alpha for gmail 20+ years ago and I have *every* permutation of my name. first letter last name, full name, first name first letter last name... the amount of email I get from people with the same/similar name as me: invoices, mailing lists, letters from family, is *staggering*. I use to politely reply telling them they had the email wrong. Some people thanked me and changed it, but most people ignored me and I just kept getting their emails. I'm just heavy on the "Report Spam" feature now.


nighty0ne

Omg you are a life saver. I was in the same scenario as the person above but sent a text now to the address without “ . “ and it worked LOL. I have couple of online shopping accounts lmao


sadethnicchild

This is for sure the problem. I'm also an early adopter with a firstnamelastname address and I get so so many emails for other people with my name around the world because either they or their friends get the address wrong. I've got about 12 of them in my contacts now ("Wrong Firstname TX", "Wrong Firstname Argentina", etc) and I'm Facebook friends with one.


ceranichole

Exactly. I have a common first name and uncommon last name, there are 4 people in the US with the same combination. One of them is particularly clueless and gives everyone and everything my email address. I was getting all of her receipts, bill notices, and children's school paperwork. I even called the school and TOLD THEM "you need to stop sending this to me. These aren't my children and it's a safety issue". They said they'd reach out to her and get the right email address. They never did. I finally got a family Christmas e card and found someone less clueless on the email chain and convinced them to explain it to her like she's 5 that this is NOT her email address. Seems to have worked. I mostly only get receipts from pottery barn and other junk mail things now.


SnooChaCha

yes. I got firstletter.lastname’s college progress reports weekly last year. Finally I called their Dean and said “this is a FERPA violation, contact this clueless student and also maybe turn off SSO” I could have disenrolled that kid from college. Wtf.


mrnubuck

A bunch of different people have been using my gmail address to register for accounts by simply adding a "." Either it's their actual email address and they can verify it, or these companies don't require verification. One time someone in India ordered an item from Amazon's India storen i got the email notice, and i was able to retrieve their password on the Amazon site by getting a temporary password notice to my email address. I could've ordered something using their account. I still don't know how others can use my gmail address this way. Crazy. If i get "their" email notifications, are they getting mine?


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uninsuredpidgeon

Especially as they are only getting emails from the mechanic. If she had created the same email address without the dots, the they would be receiving all of the woman's email.


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AdmiralBonesaw

I’m in a similar situation. The older person probably wanted the account to be just their name but was unable to because of the existing one and added a letter or number that they’ve since forgotten about. I had one name twin use his middle initial in place of the period but he often forgets it. I figured it out finally because I got sent a document that he actually filed out with his initial in the address but whoever scanned and emailed the doc didn’t include it. I have another name twin who I haven’t been able to figure out their issue but I get their 401k and DISH statements so I have their mailing address if I really wanted to get them to fix it. I just delete the 2 emails i get a month for him.


someotherbob

People cannot get a Google account that collides, but most other companies will think that 'firstlast' and 'first.last' are legitimately 2 different people. My wife was getting lots of email from Verizon and a Canadian library due to this.


VirtuaRosa

You're literally repeating what they said... lol > My wife was getting lots of email from Verizon and a Canadian library due to this. Because someone mistyped their address and used your wife's email address instead.


figuren9ne

I think what they're trying to explain is that Verizon thinks that the email with the dot is different from the email without the dot. So the other person entered a wrong email address when creating an account, which happens to be the same as OC but without the dot, and Verizon should've pointed out that "this email address is already in use". The person would've realized their mistake, but instead, Verizon treated the email address without the dot as a unique user, and the person never realized their mistake.


Enverex

Because outside of GMail, it is. This is simply a feature Google have implemented, it's not a universal email feature. Any two different email addresses would (and should) be treated as unique by any third party.


b2change

It’s been 12 years and I still get someone’s email, who thinks that firstlast is their email. I get the first.last and the firstlast.


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gorzaporp

Chiming in to say my huge family and extended family hate me because I jumped on Gmail right away and have the [email protected] email address...I get everyone's shit constantly


Alternative_Arm_2583

i have a seven, and I get about 10 -15 misdirected emails a week including reservations and legal stuff. One lady I finallty looked up (plenty of private info comes my way) and she went bananas saying I'd hacked her account LOL.


narrowscoped

So hold on, just to clarify if I created my email 15 years ago as [email protected] I can still use [email protected] and it'll go to mine?


unipleb

Correct. You've never actually *needed* to add the dot this whole time. [email protected] is yours too.


BB-h8

I have a common first and last name email for jumping on Gmail super early, and yeah I get all sorts of stuff sent to me. It's concerning how many places don't have any sort of email verification when you sign up for something. I've had companies send out bank information and a lot of identifying personal information, medical records flight confirmations, etc., and when contacted to attempt to get them correct the info and have them sent to the correct person, you are met with either cluelessness or complete hostility. I've had a few people send me messages that I stole "their" email address.


MultiFazed

I have a fairly uncommon (but not super rare) name, and use `[email protected]`. I immediately know that an email isn't for me when it's missing the dot. I used to try to follow up with people to let them know that they sent the email to the wrong person, but I finally gave up because it just. Keeps. Happening. Invoices, applications to summer camps, employee schedules, small business loan paperwork (I have enough data from that one that I could probably engage in some light identity theft, which is pretty scary), etc. Now I just have a rule set up to mark as read and archive mail being sent to the wrong address. Thankfully, I don't think I've ever seen a misaddressed email that had the dot, so it's pretty robust for such a simple filter.


davchana

Simply put a filter with no dots version, and auto delete. Like others said, no two person can make a same address with & without dots.


KS2Problema

As others note, since Gmail internally strips the periods out of the addresses during transfer, "joe.blow@" and "joeblow@" are functionally the same address to Gmail. Same with capital/lower case letters: "JoeBlow@" = "joeblow@"... A friend of mine receives emails from someone with the same first and last name but who also uses a middle initial "L" inserted in it. She appears to use all lowercase when she gives out her email address and because of the nature of the name the lowercase l is often missed by people copying the email address by hand. Either that or she forgets to put in her middle initial -- which is what we have long suspected. (She was informed of the ongoing problem multiple times by my friend advising her of important emails that had been misdirected. Some of the emails she's missed have been real eyebrow razors, including documents on the closing of a mortgage!)


sade1212

>eyebrow razors Ouchie!


ditka

/r/BoneAppleTea/


hixchem

That's one hell of a r/boneappletea


sweetrouge

I have this same problem! I get the person’s job emails, tenancy emails, confirmation emails (including setting up passwords). I have tried to let the emailers know in the hopes that they will contact the other person and they might set up another account but I still get the emails from time to time…


disposable-assassin

Someone did the same thing but for their Epic Games account. So dumb to sign up with an email they don't have access to. I can reset their password at anytime or just take their Fortnite acct. I don't even know how to get a hold of them.


The_floor_is_heavy

I recently got spam from some clothing store that I didn't remember signing up for. It seemed like a legit webpage, so I asked for a new password at got access to the account where the user has also registered a credit card. Lucky for them I didn't misuse it, though I did delete their account. My name is fairly common, so I was also contacted by some government entity thinking I was this mysterious other person with the same name.


Head-Ad4690

It’s dumb that companies even allow this. They should require you to confirm access before making the account.


FinndBors

Someone used my email for Twitter. I couldn't sign up with my email since it was already taken, so I just went ahead and hijacked their account. There was no other way to deal with the problem other than create a new email account.


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extordi

And just delete anything after the +, I hear that helps too


bflaminio

Just to be comprehensive, remove all periods (.) too.


nsa_reddit_monitor

This only works if you do it for gmail addresses only. For other providers it can result in the email going to the wrong place.


bflaminio

Username scarily kinda checks out...


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Ashenfall

That's not entirely the case, I got mine when Gmail was early alpha/beta and invite-only, got my invite from a Google employee - at that point it was possible to have a @gmail address despite being in the UK. The UK @googlemail restriction came into play slightly later than that, I imagine when it became easier to get an account. EDIT: I had a @gmail address in April 2004, looks like the restriction for new accounts was put in place October 2005 before being lifted in 2010.


dwkeith

iCloud, Hotmail, and many others support the plus sign, it is a standard extension to email, specified in [RFC 5233](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5233.html). Older iCloud accounts can use me.com or mac.com as fallbacks from icloud.com There are lots of tricks that nefarious people can use if they just read the docs for the top email providers, or forums like this. Hence why services like iCloud’s [Hide My Email](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210425) are the best solution to this problem.


superkoning

Yes, possible & clever ... but for me an indicator it's a spammer ... because I always use dots in my gmail address: both my official ([[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])) and spammy accounts [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) ). So [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) is a sign the sender is trying to avoid detection ...


Binarytobis

That’s a good point. If you have an email address with a . in it and you add another to your fake email, filtering out the emails with 2 or 0 .’s works great.


sixft7in

Clever girl.


xenonnsmb

LTP set up a filter to autodelete messages addressed to your email without the periods


trashycollector

Just set up a filter to delete ever email, problems solved.


NoFap_FV

Nice


TheRavenSayeth

[email protected] -> Simon2543 “Why are we getting so many mailer daemon emails all of a sudden?!”


unipleb

Truncation meets the spec, seems like a user requirement issue


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extordi

I previously had about 25 Amazon Prime free trials by adding "+amazon1", "+amazon2", etc. to my email. Worked great, until it didn't


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IAmTheAsteroid

I won't be changing them because frankly I don't give a shit, but I absolutely am going to check our database rn now to see if any of our customers use @googlemail lol Edit: there are 4, way fewer than I expected


averyfinename

the 'googlemail' domain was created mainly for use where 'gmail' could not be, due to conflicts with existing local trademarks. it is a legitimately used domain for email users. they just mapped both to the same servers and accounts.


NLGsy

When I was stationed overseas I opened a second Gmail account but in Germany you could only open a Googlemail account so I have one of each because of where I was located when I opened the accounts.


Lonelysock2

But more importantly, is it pronounced 'google-mail,' 'googl-email,' or my favourite, 'goog-le-mail' like Macklemore. Or Go ogle mail


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TaliesinMerlin

I do love the rock-paper-scissors logic that this sort of thing escalates to.


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parentesi

Just to be straightforward: if you do this without notifying the user, you can be breaking the European regulations for personal data.


fonefreek

Doesn't that technically mean you're sending emails to addresses that haven't solicited your email?


TaliesinMerlin

Only if it weren't known that the two addresses went to the same recipient. The original LPT relies on the two addresses reaching the same inbox, hence the same recipient.


Captain-Griffen

Yes. They are considered separate recipients by CAN-SPAM, which carries surprisingly high penalties.


nsa_reddit_monitor

My website contact form blocks messages from googlemail.com addresses because they're usually phishing spam. This along with a few other filters actually stops almost all form spam without needing a captcha. The filters check the user's email against a list of known spam email domains, checks their IP address against a list of known infected and spambot IPs, and checks the message content against a list of specific banned phrases I've seen in multiple spam messages. The form actually gives useful feedback when blocking a message, so if a legit user is caught in the filter they know what to do about it. Spambots can't understand the instructions though so they just get blocked. Here's the source code that does the actual filtering: https://source.netsyms.com/Netsyms/data.netsyms.net/src/branch/master/endpoints/net.contactspam.php


conjectureandhearsay

If you are sending messages that people naturally want to filter out of their lives, my LPT tip for you is to knock it off, even if you are clever enough to get around the “hack” lol


SekkiGoyangi

Also, do not do this if you're placing an order somewhere to avoid getting spammed. Unless you don't care to be informed about any changes in your order ofcourse.


PistonMilk

Use it for the order. Keep it around until you've gotten all order emails and received the actual order. Then add it to your delete filters.


PurepointDog

You evil genius


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mattergijz

If you need a temporary email address just go to[10minutemail.com](https://10minutemail.com)


not_thrilled

Plenty of places that rely on you giving them an email address are wise to the one-time-use domains and will block you from using them. I used to use mailinator.com or the domains from fakenamegenerator.com all the time, but they don't work as well anymore.


rad_change

Almost all accounts I've created in the last five years have been with temporary email addresses, and I've been stopped from using a temporary email address maybe twice. It makes me realize I'm not that interested in the service I was signing up for.


cheekflutter

Same here. If you look at my password manager its full of obscurity. Different emails for most with auto gen passowrds. I hope it looks like shit to data miners.


Senior_Night_7544

But you think they haven't figured this trick out? It's trivial to remove dots and plusses and replace googlemail with gmail. If they aren't doing it it's because they don't want to. These tricks have all been around for 10+ years now. This LPT sucks because you're still giving up your real email.


[deleted]

Yup, either use throw away email services; or, create a dummy email account specifically to sign up for crap.


mattergijz

That’s too bad, haven’t had the issue myself yet.


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Easy_Money_

This is why iCloud Hide My Email is great, because they’re never gonna be able to filter out @icloud.com email addresses


neopod

Yes I use both the +word hack on gmail and Apples Hide. But found when using Apples with a car manufacturer website, it took a few days to register, maybe the system thought it was spam and was checked by a human or this multibillion company sucks at IT! TIL people used eBay to get @gmail addresses?. When gmail launched in the UK there was a website called isnoop that google eventually shut down; that gave shares 25 or 50 at a time. I must have shared over 1000s invites to strangers, who asked for them.


creativityisntreal

Also worth mentioning DuckDuckGo's email service and mailinator.com. I used to use mailinator all the time -- you can use any address @mailinator.com and then go to their site and check the inbox. Do note that these are PUBLIC inboxes, so anybody anywhere can view any mailinator inbox without a password. For a quick and dirty throwaway, though, it's great! The only minor asterisk being that I have found some sites that blacklist mailinator email addresses. DuckDuckGo's email service is pretty good, I just set it up a few weeks ago. You can get an @duck.com domain and then it acts as a proxy service. You keep your real email service and DuckDuckGo will forward emails sent to your duck.com address to your real email after removing trackers. They also let you generate throwaway email addresses that you can deactivate at any time.


suddenly_ponies

Damn. I always hoped that Duck Duck Go with catch on but it seems like it's done so beyond my expectations. I didn't even know they had a mail service it sounds awesome


erikieperikie

It is awesome, I use a generated email address for everything by default now.


StarkillerX42

The caveat is it's not a mail service. It's a mail cleaning service. They will remove trackers before it gets to your actual email, and they will help you hide your email address by giving you a random email to use, but you still need a real email service that will host the emails for you forever.


dutchkimble

engine unite disgusting merciful nutty existence chase aback rich command *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*


creativityisntreal

Oh heck, I didn't know that. I found [this](https://gist.github.com/carlsednaoui/a01bbba0c06eb6bf3bab) as a source and tested a couple, do you know of an official source for these alternate domains?


fueledbysarcasm

I've known sites that seem to use a whitelist system, because absolutely anything other than the popular domains doesnt work 🙄


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creativityisntreal

Firefox relay is really good too, yeah. DuckDuckGo's is free, but less featureful (especially with some of the higher tier Relay subscriptions)


ChocolateDippedGoose

Simplelogin is Nice to. Especially when its combined with protonmail


eforemergency

Just adding another one - If you have iCloud you can use apple’s hide my email feature. When you sign up for a site it allows you to create a randomized, temporary email address. The emails to that address will forward to whatever address you want, and when you are ready to stop getting the emails from whatever service you signed up for, you can simply shut down the temp address. So you can use it for as long or short a time as you need.


Juice805

I have moved nearly all my accounts to use these relayed emails along with randomized PWs and 2FA. They are great, and have never been denied when signing up. Looking forward to switching to passkeys when they become available in services and my PW manager. I used to use the methods with + and/or an alias which are also supported in iCloud, but I’ve yet to get a spam mail which hasn’t just stripped the +.


JayGarrick11929

You can also generate a random email to through the settings app instead of going to the website and waiting for the pop up on the keyboard to show up


illaillaj

+1 to this suggestion, even if it requires iCloud+ (cheapest option is $0.99 per month) but it is definitely worth it. You cannot pick and choose your alias; it gives you an auto generated one with random words and letters. But at least sites can’t blacklist the entire icloud.com domain like they can with mailinator or other temporary email services.


Clint_Beastw0od

This requires iCloud+ which starts at $0.99/month but is completely worth it for this feature alone. It’s integrated really well and has saved me from so much spam.


chevtheron

I do not have iCloud+ and use this feature regularly.


[deleted]

Nah it’s free.


paramedic-tim

I find it hard to use this feature as it doesn’t store my password correctly (or at all) and then it’s impossible to recover my account as I don’t have the private relay info (unless I’m just not doing it correctly?)


eforemergency

Oh weird. I don’t use it that often but the couple I have are saved in my password manager and I haven’t had any issues. Or they were very temporary and deleted after a day or two.


FuckMu

If you go into settings —> click your name at the top —> iCloud —> private relay you can see all the emails it’s created as well as make new ones.


trolley661

Does it delete anything going to that? What if you need to authenticate the email to use it


yParticle

Then add a delay (e.g. delete anything over a day old). You can also move them to a separate folder so they're not cluttering your inbox even for a day. Or send them to spam which auto-deletes after 30 days.


sanjosanjo

I don't think this tip should have the "auto delete" instructions, because there are reasons why you might want to keep mail coming to both addresses. I would just add a label to anything coming with the googlemail.com address.


darkHorse0101

[Simplelogin](https://simplelogin.io/) provides a better service to create multiple E-mail aliases for any E-mail provider without revealing your real email address. It is an freemium open source product. The best thing is you can delete/pause/change your E-mail alias when you wish. P.S. you can also send emails using the aliases that you have created.


SirRevan

Tagging on that https://www.privacyguides.org/en/ is great if you grow concerned about your privacy. They talk about different providers for securing email.


SnoFox

If you have a few bucks a month, you can get a permanent fastmail.com address with infinite "temporary emails" (Masked emails) that you can also send from (for things like support interactions), then block when you're done with it. You can't deconstruct back into your original email address (like with Gmail hacks), and it even integrates with some password managers to add to your sign-up process. For a couple more bucks a month and no technical knowledge, you can bring your domain own along too. Or multiple if you're crazy like me. Bonus anecdote: I switched off Gmail to Fastmail during the Google Apps/Gsuite/Workspace fiasco where they promised to take 10+ years of my internet identity unless I started paying them money (and then reneged) - I didn't take kindly to that. I paid someone else instead. I know I sound like a walking ad but I am extremely happy with my Fastmail setup giving EVERY website a masked email with my own domain and want others to succeed in tamping down online spam/scams.


MuckYu

Wait how does the "." One work. I remember trying to make a gmail acc back in the day like this "[email protected]" It said not available/taken. So I try "[email protected]" And it works. So now with the "." Trick I could do "[email protected]"? What about the guy with the taken email? Can he use the same?


TheFloppyFlipp

I usually just use a temp mail site for anything that requires an email if I don’t care to get anything else from them. These sites just a create a random email and let you view the inbox. Once you refresh the page it disappears


[deleted]

Me too, [here](https://10minutemail.com/) is what I see a lot of people recommend.


deWaardt

Lots of sites banned 10minutemail though…


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atlcog

Except some sites blacklist the known temporary email domains.


Galactic_Irradiation

Tempmail uses a different nonsense domain each time. I've used them for dozens of things and never been rejected!


SockMonkey1128

OK, but how do I go back to 2006 and implement this?


[deleted]

I love this tip and honestly surprised more people don’t know it. Similarly,I have a domain managed by google apps for the sole purpose of email. I have my primary professional email that is something like [email protected], but I only give that out to people. Anytime I sign up for a new website that requires an email I do something like [email protected] or [email protected]. Then I have my domain settings routing everything @1234.org to my main address. So when I start getting flooded with spam I can 1) see who sold my data and 2) I can set a rule to route/trash it based on the “to”. Also, significantly reduces the risk of getting hacked and if it does, it’s likely very contained and not a widespread risk.


peeker004

How do we use org in gmails ? Noob here


[deleted]

It’s all in the domain you register. You can choose from so many now it’s kind of crazy. If you’re using normal gmail, you don’t get to pick. This is only if you use google apps to register and maintain your domain


peeker004

I guess I should probably use the [email protected] thingy and put the website or service name where i register to spot those buggers. Different domain i don't have a clue. Thanks for trying


dutchkimble

faulty dependent detail worthless pot like grab intelligent whistle humor *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*


meistermichi

Just be aware that some services are programmed to not accept mail addresses with a + in it.


venusenvy47

I have a question about this. I have a domain with Google Domains, along with a Workplace Business Standard account. This Workplace account lists a price of $12 per month per user. Do you know if I can make other email addresses with my domain without being charged for extra users?


Both_Percentage_9262

Personally I just use a yahoo email address for anyone I think I would get junk mail from and then use my gmail address for my important emails.


44problems

I'm amazed there's people who don't do this. The Yahoo / Hotmail / AOL junk account.


JHaywire

Same. I have my email address, my “professional” email, and a spam/junk one for questionable things. To me it’s a lot easier than setting up these filters and stuff. I might use the name+Hulu trick for a few things and see if it works. But otherwise this feels like an easy enough setup.


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[deleted]

Programmer LPT: If you see [googlemail.com](https://googlemail.com) domain in your emails, replace it with [gmail.com](https://gmail.com) to ensure emails are delivered!


[deleted]

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resso1991

What if the emails leaks from those trashy websites and the spammers knows this? I will still get the trashy emails on my main email. If I am right on my assumption above then I will just keep to use a separate account for just those trashy websites


nonchalan8t

Or you can use an email aliasing service like SimpleLogin or AnonAddy.


jshusky

I followed Ars’ guide about 10 years ago and started my own mail server. I have an account that catches all mail sent to the domain that doesn’t map to an existing account. Basically allows me to make up email addresses on the fly and still get mail, even if most of it is garbage. So both [email protected] or [email protected] work right away. I feel sneaky about this, so I’m just happy this came up so I could post about it.


hazpat

Lpt: if someone signs up to your site with @googlemail auto delete oogle. Simple


thegtabmx

LPT: People who really want your email know how this works, and a few lines of code can refactor any email list to strip the dots, remove the plus suffixes, and replace googlemail with gmail. Don't be naive. You're giving away just as much info with each of these tricks. The only benefit is auto-labeling, but spammers worth their salt will have your original email at the end of the day.


Serzern

Jokes on them I use @googlemail and use @gmail to filter out.


__Elwood_Blues__

I thought I'd check this out on my own junk (fnarr). I have 277 junk mails in my junk folder. I always use [email protected] for my address. Guess how many of those emails go to [email protected]? Zero They clearly can do it, but it seems they don't. I've had my email address from close to the start of Hotmail, so naturally I get soooo much spam now.


silentslit

Another alternative, use a random email generator


RBeck

Unethical LPT: If someone registers on your site as [email protected], normalize it as [email protected]


The_Perfect_Handle

Does this work for other email providers as well? Outlook specifically. Edit: The `+` does work, `.` does not.


Praetor918

This is the one true LPT to rule them all


PrettyMuchRonSwanson

> trash (pun intended) Where exactly is the pun? I’m confused


jadedsprint

A lot of websites don't accept '+' in the email address


-rwsr-xr-x

Google didn’t invent this, though they do support it. Email subaddressing has been a feature of email for at least the last 25+ years, and should be supported by every provider. Those that do not support it are not complying with the SMTP RFC, and should be informed and educated. I’ve been using it for at least that long to filter spam and see who forwards or sells my email to whom, and then I shut it down, report and block them.


Joe_T

Similarly, these domains are synonyms in email addresses (they go to the same AOL inbox): * aol.com * aim.com * netscape.net


Wild-Simple1908

Hey guys! This is awful advice. Half of the battle is email clutter. The other half is the fact that any manipulation on your gmail account still lands…guess where…on google hardware. They own it. Cleaning an inbox isn’t actually solving the problem it’s actually just making it worse for you.


SecretAgentxMan

I'll add that a lot of websites don't do input parsing other than checking for the @ symbol. You can do "[email protected]" and you'd be surprised how many places accept that. Of course, this only works if you don't actually need to receive emails to that account


akorrafan

I like to use those free 10-minute email addresses. Worked most of the time for me


EuroSpot

Awesome hacks! I'm going to start using this. However it seems using the "+" in the email no longer works. I tried several different combinations with my email and none could find the email. The "." hack worked like a charm though! And so did the "googlemail" one.