Hidden Gmail features lets you fight spam and more

September 2nd, 2009

This article was originally written in March 2008, updated with a few more things.

2 Hidden ways to get more from your Gmail

Now who hasn’t faced spam? It’s become a part of our lives dealing with Spam amongst genuine mails. Over the past few years I have heard various ideas as to how to deal with spam. Some suggested having multiple ids, say one for office one for personal use. Others suggest me to keep a separate id to giveaway to banks and other registrations over the internet. However with increasing number of online registrations and user accounts, say for me I have 2x Netbanking, 1x Facebook, 1x ISP Home, 1x ISP Office, 1x Digg, 1x StumbleUpon, 1x Cellular service, 1x eBay … the list is endless! So however my problem is that I now have over 18 email ids and it’s a mess practicing this method. So how about a single email id that lets you change itself every time you give it to someone? Oh yes its here in your very own Gmail!

Gmail has 2 unique (and hidden) features that lets you deal with this situation.

  • Put any amount of dots (.) / ‘full stops’ between your email id, the mail will still get forwarded to the same account! For example: johnnycry@gmail.com is the same as johnny.cry@gmail.com / j.o.h.n.n.ycry@gmail.com or johnnycr.y@gmail.com.
  • Add any suffix to your user id using a plus sign (+), and the mail will still land at the same email id. For example: johnnycry@gmail.com is the same as johnnycry+xyz@gmail.com / johnnycry+bank@gmail.com or johnnycry+isp@gmail.com
Now that’s really cool, isn’t it? But how do I use it?

Categories: Tips n Tricks | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments