@ACF:
Ah, your comment didn't show up until I submitted mine. You're right, sometimes the + trick doesn't always work in forms.

turnersd

actually all gmail users are given an infinte number of email addresses. you can see where your spam is coming from and filter it out if you register for websites like this:

YourUserName+AnythingYouWant@gmail.com

you can make up anything and put it after the plus sign and it will all go to YourUserName@gmail.com.

turnersd

Wow! This is even better than the "+" trick, which doesn't work in all web forms. [lifehacker.com]

ACF

@doctorj Yes it works both ways.

nakedcode

Don't forget the dot trick. You can add dots (periods) anywhere in the first part of your Gmail address and it will be the same: babaracus@gmail.com is the same as b.a.baracus@ is the same as b.a.b.a.r.a.c.u.s@ is the same as ...babar...acus...@gmail.com. And most web forms don't puke when you enter an address with dots.

Swirlee

What's spam?
just kidding I've been Gmailing for...two or three years now and have never gotten any spam.

hayden0103

I live in the UK and have a recently new GMail account (2007). As I'm from the UK it tells me my email is @googlemail.co.uk or something, however I give everyone @gmail.com and it works fine!

JaJaWa

I'm just wondering if this works the other way around?

Since late 2005 new users in the UK have been assigned @googlemail.com addresses due to a legal dispute regarding the Gmail trademark - can they receive messages sent to an @gmail.com address anyway?

If nobody knows I'll test it out since I have a newer @googlemail.com account and an @gmail.com one from before the UK switch.

doctorj

@jarhead: I'm sorry, but I don't think you're correct. Try it - just send yourself an email to test. You can type first...name.last.name@gmail.com and it will work - and similarly you can type the whole thing with no dots all and it will work.

The only caveat: You do have to log-in with the name you originally chose, dots and all.

EntrepreneurTim

Also, how will this cut down on spam which, like @hayden0103 said, I have not received in a long time? If a spammer knows this, all they have to do is send an e-mail to both yoohoo@gmail.com and yoohoo@googlemail.com...

jarhead

@Swirlee: Not completely true... one of my e-mail addresses is firstname.lastname@gmail.com... I get e-mails every once in a while from people who are sending e-mail to firstnamelastname@gmail.com... exactly the same e-mail as mine except the other guy does not have a dot in his e-mail...

jarhead

@jarhead: EntrepreneurTim is correct. Google Help: [mail.google.com] .

I know in the past there were some kinks with people who had first registered with first.lastname@ not being able to receive mail to the "non-dot" version, firstlastname@. It appears all nice and fixed today.

I will definitely store the @googlemail.com equivalency for later use. Thanks.

-specialk

kalebdf

I must be missing something? What's to prevent a spammer from just adding @googlemail.com to their list of email addresses? Find "gmail, replace with "googlemail", and append to list. Is there some magic going on here?

timyates

Is there any point to this if you forward or POP your mail in a consolidated account?

--Chuck Tomasi (Gmail Podcast)

ctomasi

I still like Google Apps for Your Domain.
firstname.website@domain.com.

Catch-all recognizes all firstname. and redirects to firstname@domain.com.

Filters in the firstname@domain.com can see the original to address and act accordingly, including dumping any that attract spam. (I can tell that a local Chevrolet dealership turned my email address over to General Motors who decided I was my dad and has started sending me emails service offers for his Buick.)

tvjames

@jarhead
firstlast and first.last are exactly the same email address as far as gmail is concerned. If someone is giving out your address without the dot, you will get the mail and they will not. I have been getting mail in this way for three years, including flight itineraries and other rather personal stuff. I have sent increasing strongly worded requests to the senders to contact the person who gave them the address and tell him to fix it. Recently, this has started to show some effect.

GBMax

I just signed up for seperate gmail accounts, that I give out to any website that I expect spam from.

balls187

I'm not sure how good Google is at separating out Gmail and Googlemail addresses. Just after my son was born he received an email to the account I had set up for him while he was still in utero. (Aside: I wonder whether signing up an as-yet-unborn person constitutes a violations of their Terms of Use....)

Anyway, a this email was to someone with the same name and a GoogleMail account, sent by someone in the Aston Martin R and D department. Nothing too revelatory about upcoming models, unfortunately, but I have to say I hope Google is doing a better job now about preventing this kind of crossover.

stephenmunday

Is the image a King of the Hill reference? as in Rusty Shackleford?

rndmideas

I cant have a @GMail Address Anyway. Im in the UK. I must have a @Googlemail.com Address or the Copyright Owner of GMail in the UK Will sue Google.

TetraUK

Yahoo mail's premium service ($20 per year) offers Disposable Addresses. I can create a core address "prefix" (different from my real yahoo email, so no one can guess at it).

To this core you add a customized extension for whatever site you need an email for, such as stuart-lifehacker@yahoo.com. Now, if they spam me or sell my address to a list, I will know when I receive other mail to this address (all goes into my normal inbox).

However, unlike Gmail, I can delete that lifehacker alias anytime I want, and never receive email to that address again.

stuartny

Whoops, other one wasn't there yet.

Myles

Well I was going to mention the + trick, but I guess it's already been mentioned. But how about the . trick? For example:

bob.dole@gmail.com
=
bobdole@gmail.com

Myles

its good idea..But one more idea is also there from the gmail help pages...

That is.. user.name@gmail.com is same as
usern.ame@gmail.com is same as
userna.me@gmail.com is same....
is "." is dot not a sepearator.. though it is a seperator in some domains..

still you can receive your mail as usual. So you can have more room to filter some more stuff..
then why late.. go and Do it.....

plz visit..
www.clickthemouse.blogspot.com

gsvvmail

@stuartny: I guess it's not that much harder to set up a filter for mails at User+lifehacker@gmail.com to be deleted.
The same works of course for the Dot-trick.

Christoph Wagner

I just sent a test message to firstlast@gmail.com and a separate message to first.last@gmail.com... I received the first.last@gmail.com message but not the firstlast@gmail.com message...

jarhead

@EntrepreneurTim: @kalebdf: @GBMax: I am at a total loss then because if I try to log in with firstlast@gmail.com, it does not work and even asks did I mean first.last@gmail.com... (see screenshot)

When I signed up for the account, I tried getting firstlast@gmail.com and it said it was already taken but it let me sign up for first.last@gmail.com... I have had this account for at least 2 years... crazy stuff....

jarhead

I'll echo tvjames, Google Apps for your Domain is the way to go. I simply use the domain name as the email address (e.g. lifehacker@domain.com) and these flow into my "catch-all" inbox (which is my main account).

This does not eliminate or even minimize spam, as much as it identifies the source of the unwanted email. Gmail has made it easy to setup filters to quickly stop the leak.

nmabry

@ctomasi: nope- (as far as i know) any filters and labels you set up still go to the same 'inbox' in your pop client (i use thunderbird)

@jarhead: re: how this will cut down on spam.. basically as others have said, by giving this modified email address out and then setting up a filter in gmail (say to archive, delete, forward, etc..) that takes said action when a new email arrives which is addressed to the newly modified address- this will ensure that your mailbox remains clean(er)

@timyates: good point. i mean it will take effort but doesnt seem unfeasible. maybe you can create a gmail filter that will basically do the reverse- "any email not addressed to youroriginalaccountname@gmail.com take this action" (move, filter, archive, etc..)

aviL

I still don't get it. How can you stop or decrease yourself getting spam by using this address? Ok, so, like all my important people I give my address name@gmail.com and all my non-important people to name@googlemail.com? So, if I receive both, which i tested and do, how does this decrease spam?

rocket1970

So exactly how does this protect against spam? When I send myself a message to name@googlemail.com it shows up in my Gmail inbox. If spam is sent to that address, isn't it also going to end up in my Gmail account? I don't see the advantage against spam. Help loosen my density.

robastewart

@EntrepreneurTim: I think you're misunderstanding jarhead, from my experience if you *registered* your name with a dot in it, it's different than an account registered without a dot. So, lets say you registered entrepreneur.tim@ and I registered entrepreneurTim, they would be different accounts but if you tried to drop the dot from your name I would get the emails.

Davandron

@rndmideas: that has to be rus shackleford, a cs prof at georgia tech! author?

thejart

@timyates:
there's no magic and there's nothing to stop it from happening... in fact there's nothing to stop spammer's from abusing the dot or plus tricks either...

here's a little rule of thumb - if you can figure out what the root email address is from the given email address then so can the spammers (and spam-related programs written for address-list management), so you haven't really stopped anything...

kurt wismer

I use spamgourmet, which works well for me. Email is forwarded to your primary email address. You also get a choice of addresses, eg @spamgourmet.com is the same as @inboxclean.com.

See [spamgourmet.com]

Wofall

@jarhead
Logging in is not the same as getting mail. Mail sent to first.last or firstlast will arrive in the same mailbox, even though only one of those will work for logging in, depending on how you set up the account.

GBMax

Yeah, this is an old tip. You can also have pluses in your email address, which I use a lot. Like for lifehacker, I signed up using shamess+Lifehacker@gmail.com. If I ever find spam coming from that address, I know who's sold my email!

Dots work great too. xD

shamess

I don't think this is resolved, and I'm curious - it seems there are two camps: 1.dots are Ok 2.Dots can't work. The way I see it, if the dotting method does work, then it's surely impractical for Google to give out "user.name" and "username" to 2 different people.

If it *doesn't* work... then how come it works? (For the record I just tried signing up with dotted variations of my username - eg. us.ername - and was denied)

damen

I didn't take the time to read all the comments, but I once was forced to enter an @googlemail rather than @gmail when signing up for a windows live account for xbox live.

The only reason that I can think why is Microsoft was discriminating against gmail users.

It was a somewhat new email address, and I have no memory of previously entering it to any Microsoft related form ever.

Or maybe I'm just stupid.

Andham

@damen
Why not just try it? Send an email to a dotted variant of your address and see what happens. Works for me here. Seems it may not work for everyone, though.

GBMax