Gmail – Plus Addressing

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I like that Gmail allows me to use “Plus Addressing”, because it makes it easier for me to organize specific incoming email.

According to the Wikipedia Gmail entry, Plus-addressing section, as accessed 12OCT06 :

Gmail also supports “plus-addressing” of e-mails. Messages can be sent to addresses in the form: username+extratext@gmail.com where extratext can be any string. Plus-addressing allows users to sign up for different services with different aliases and then easily filter all e-mails from those services, however, a significant number of services do not support email addresses containing plus signs.

One I use all the time is gmailaddress+bu@gmail.com, the first portion is not my real Gmail address of course. This is for when I am sending myself a backup of information done at work to my Gmail account, and I have a filter set up to automatically label any emails to gmailaddress+bu@gmail.com with a specific label. More about Gmail filters in a post to follow.

I also use a plus addressed Gmail to sign up for things online, then if I have a problem or start receiving a lot of spam I can just set a filter to automatically delete any thing coming in to that address.

In effect plus addressing gives you unlimited disposable email addresses, at least I have not found anywhere that would not accept one.

I am sure there are some more creative ways to use plus addressing, and would like to hear from my readers about their different uses for this. Leave a comment on this or any post to let me know.

Related Article

Gmail – Overview (ctublog.sefcug.com)

Retired, grandfather, blogger, participating in creative writing prompt blogs, and love to read.