Homebrew Gmail Filters...Kinda

November 9, 2006 4:34 PM

A while ago of LifeHacker (I think, anyways) I saw an article on using periods and adding different words within your Gmail address that would still send to your account, but you could use as 'disposable' emails. Confused? No worries, examples and

It's hard to explain, but the best example I can think of was something like this:

[e-mail]

or

[e-mail]

Anyone know what I'm talking about? Bonus points if you have a link to the article!

posted by InsanePenguin to computers & internet (13 comments total)

Is it this?
posted by catburger at 4:37 PM on November 9, 2006

Is this the one?
Generate unlimited email addresses with Gmail

Or this one?
Instant disposable Gmail addresses
posted by llamateur at 4:38 PM on November 9, 2006

Of course, the stupid thing is that many websites don't allow the plus sign in addresses. Come on, I don't want your spam. Make it easy for me!
posted by niles at 4:44 PM on November 9, 2006

This arstechnica article explains the gmail error bug feature that sends any email address with a period in it to the same address without a period.

Mail to [e-mail] will be sent to [e-mail] as will any other variation with periods. I don't know if this is still the case.
posted by Science! at 4:50 PM on November 9, 2006

Damn you guys are quick! Thanks so much!
posted by InsanePenguin at 4:51 PM on November 9, 2006

Yeah, it seems to still work, but it looks like Google won't let you register a new 'dot' variation of an existing name.
posted by Science! at 4:54 PM on November 9, 2006

>it looks like Google won't let you register a new 'dot' variation of an existing name.

That's correct but implies a misunderstanding. The reason is, surely, that a "dot variation of an existing name" is exactly the same name to Gmail. Of course it won't let you register the same name twice.

I've used this feature in the past as a marker to test sites' "we will not sell your email address" policy.

If I sign up to site A as "a.mbrose" and site B as "am.brose" then any spam I get addressed to the latter reveals site B as the culprit.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 5:31 PM on November 9, 2006

The plus-sign thing actually works with almost all e-mail addresses. And it's exactly because of this that many web sites don't allow it in their forms.
posted by winston at 8:08 PM on November 9, 2006

Hm. I have a gmail that's [e-mail] and mail sent to the address without the period lands in the inbox.
posted by Savannah at 8:39 PM on November 9, 2006

I'm inclined to believe that the reason the '+' isn't allowed isn't so much that website operators are oh-so-cagey to the newfangled tricks we're pulling, but rather that the plus character is often thought, incorrectly, to be not valid in an email address. They're legal, but many validators don't allow them anyway.
posted by RikiTikiTavi at 10:02 PM on November 9, 2006

For those cursing that +'s dont work, here's an older workaround.
posted by the cydonian at 2:55 AM on November 10, 2006

This is sort of related for people who can't get the plus sign to work - if you have your own domain, host your domain's mail through Gmail hosted and then just do [e-mail]
posted by jesirose at 7:46 AM on November 10, 2006

disposable gmail addresses
posted by meehawl at 8:29 AM on November 10, 2006