Need more email accounts? Well yes, it's a great idea and everything, but I don't have time to simply check the one(s) I already have. Ah well you see, this is where there are solutions. Gmail is either very flexible or very stupid, depending on your viewpoint. It doesn't recognise full stops in gmail accounts. So philipbradley@gmail (dot com) is exactly the same as philip.bradley@gmail etc. All of the email comes into the same account. This means that you can sign up for a number of different accounts with the same provider (such as Twitter for example) and have all the content coming into the one place.
But wait! There's more. You can also use the + sign. So, if I want to get all my work emails sent to one place I could tell people to email me at philipbradley+work@gmail (dot com). Then I can go to my filters and set up a filter to label it and get it all popped into one single neat place.
But wait! There's more. This little wrinkle takes into account the fact that as well as the @gmail.com address, there's also the @googlemail.com address as well. Both of these work as one - if you've got [email protected] you've also got [email protected] too. So if you need even more addresses, start using the alternative address as well.
But wait! There's more. The full stop wheeze works there as well, so you can start using that option as well.
Of course, another use for all of this is to sign up to various different things and by using the splendid Gmail filtering system have emails popping off into lots of places in the same account.
Nice and neat!
But wait! There's more. You can also use the + sign. So, if I want to get all my work emails sent to one place I could tell people to email me at philipbradley+work@gmail (dot com). Then I can go to my filters and set up a filter to label it and get it all popped into one single neat place.
But wait! There's more. This little wrinkle takes into account the fact that as well as the @gmail.com address, there's also the @googlemail.com address as well. Both of these work as one - if you've got [email protected] you've also got [email protected] too. So if you need even more addresses, start using the alternative address as well.
But wait! There's more. The full stop wheeze works there as well, so you can start using that option as well.
Of course, another use for all of this is to sign up to various different things and by using the splendid Gmail filtering system have emails popping off into lots of places in the same account.
Nice and neat!
Nice post. I knew about the gmail variation aspect, but never thought to use them in the ways you mentioned. Very good thinking!
Posted by: Patrick DiDomenico | January 22, 2010 at 11:08 PM
Phil....I have [email protected] so I also get [email protected]. Problem is, I also receive mail for TWO other Peter Scotts who use [email protected]. One of them buys lots of online music and I have his username and passwords available, and the other one - well, I won't go into it....
There may be more Peter Scotts out there whose mail I'm reading. I'll need to look into this further. It's quite disturbing.
Posted by: Peter Scott | January 26, 2010 at 06:50 PM
Yes, I found it too. It's a little weird. I registered two accounts [email protected] and [email protected], and every time I sign in to [email protected] then GMail automatically redirect me to [email protected].
If the two mail addresses belone to different person, it's a very dangerous problem!
Posted by: Jason | January 28, 2010 at 08:33 AM