My 2nd favorite Gmail tip
I am a subscriber to the Gmail blog - because I am a moderate Google nut and like to stay in the loop with what they are doing. Well, I saw this tip on their blog and actually on another productivity blog, and it is just too good not to share.
I guess I will remind you what my favorite Gmail tip is before I get into the second one: Gmail is an email management system. I wrote about this before, but it bears repeating for those who have multiple email accounts and are in desperate need of organization or simplification.
What this means is that you can have all of your email from all of your accounts going directly into your single Gmail account.
You say, “great. I already knew that.”
Okay, but the good part here is that you can also SEND email from your other accounts WITHIN your Gmail account. So, if your email address is Billy@hotmail.com you can now send emails from that address within the comfort of your Gmail home (as well as any other accounts you have.)
So, what is your 2nd favorite Gmail tip?
Ok, so on to the 2nd favorite Gmail tip.
Say my Gmail address is Ihatespam@gmail.com. I can send emails to Ihatespam+bob@gmail.com or Ihatespam+anything@gmail.com and they will all go to my inbox.
You can add a “+” sign to the end of your Gmail id (Ihatespam in this case) and add anything you want after it.
If you think about this just a little bit, you will be able to see that this opens up a lot of possibilities for organizing your inbox.
- You can have work or school emails come to separate address and then filter them to go into different folders in your inbox
- You can have newsletters etc. filtered in to different folders as well
- You can easily weed out spam by using this technique. If, whenever you offer up your email address on a website you add the “+somewebsite” you will always know how spammers got your email address. Then you can quickly filter all of these emails into your spam folder. Problem solved.
My experience with this Gmail tip
I have tried this and really like using this tip along with the filters in Gmail. It really can help organize your inbox.
However, I will say that not all websites allow you to enter an email address that includes a “+”. I was a little bit bummed about that, but hey it is better than none, isn’t it?
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Filed under How to Simplify your Life by bob
Comments on My 2nd favorite Gmail tip »
This is true, and it’s not a Gmail feature, it’s a feature of email addresses. See RFC2821. The receiving host can do whatever it likes with the stuff to the left of the “@”.
If I was a spammer, and I harvested your “Ihatespam+foo@gmail.com” address, I could very easily convert that to “Ihatespam@gmail.com” and get my spam to your inbox.
It’s a useful feature for filtering, but it’s by no means an anti-spam feature
@Steve
Just kidding - thanks for sharing - it is good to know, especially now that it can be used with any email!!
Well thanks for raining on my parade!!