Learn about these cool Gmail tracks if you’d like to disguise your email address or have an easier way to triage and filter your inbox.
Creating a Gmail alias is a great way to email without revealing your primary email address. Thanks to a reader tip and a little bit of research, we have two more ways for you to disguise your email address somewhat and manage your inbox better.
Add specific characters to your Gmail address
With both of these tricks, you’re only changing your email address before the @ sign. The email domain (the @gmail.com portion) must remain intact.
Use the dot
Gmail ignores any dots in your email address, which lets you use them in your address to make it appear different even though it’s the same email address. As an example, my.gmail@gmail.com, m.y.gmail@gmail.com, and m.y.g.m.a.i.l@gmail.com are the same as mygmail@gmail.com.
I use this trick to sign up for mailing lists all the time. No matter the numbers of dots used, Gmail will ensure the emails hit your primary inbox. Just make sure not to put two dots together.
This trick won’t work for emails on hosted domains. For example, an email sent from san.dy@idownloadblog.com instead of sandy@idownloadblog.com was returned as undeliverable even though we use Google’s services on our domain.
This isn’t a problem for email addresses on the Gmail.com domain. For example, our emails sent to i.love.apps.456@gmail.com were delivered just fine to our iloveapps456@gmail.com inbox.
Use the plus sign
The second way to adjust your email address is the plus sign that you can use with other characters in your email address. As an example, you could use mygmail+newsletters@gmail.com for newsletters. Gmail disregards everything past the plus sign in the email address, ensuring the emails are delivered straight to your inbox. Plus, they’re listed with the +newsletters part, making them easy to spot in your inbox.
This trick also works for hosted Google accounts that don’t end in @gmail.com. For instance, sandy+newsletters@idownloadblog.com and info+newsletters@sandystachowiak.com both work. The plus sign also works with other email providers, like Outlook and iCloud.
Disguise or filter
Regardless of the method used, you can make your Gmail address appear somewhat different, although not completely. These tricks enable you to manage your inbox even better than before. For instance, you can sett up Gmail rules with filters to perform actions on any emails sent to mygmail+newsletters@gmail.com, like moving them to a dedicated folder, flagging or marking them as read, and more.
Such small tweaks to your Gmail email address give you more flexibility and improve your privacy. Are you planning to use these Gmail tricks to alter the appearance of your email address. If so, let us know in the comments!
Other Gmail tips for you: