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Microsoft adding support for custom '+' email addresses in Office 365

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Re: Microsoft adding support for custom '+' email addresses in Office 365

#61

Now if only websites will stop rejecting plus-addressed email addresses as invalid. The most frequent offenders are mom & pop websites that you just _know_ are going to get breached.

I use shopname@firstname.lastname.email, with my own lastname.email domain. Fastmail makes configuring your dns records for this super simple.

It's always fun interacting with customer service reps when they for example confirm my email address... "errrrrr yeah so we email you at ourname@...?"

Re: Microsoft adding support for custom '+' email addresses in Office 365

#62
post #17

Now if only websites will stop rejecting plus-addressed email addresses as invalid. The most frequent offenders are mom & pop websites that you just _know_ are going to get breached.

That's not going to help, since everybody knows you can just strip everything after the '+' and get to the main mailbox.

I do prefix+12RandomLetters@blahblah and every potential sender gets it's own random address. Then I use filters to move mail to predefined folders. What's left is spam.

If a mail comes in from an unknown sender to known address I know that the address is compromised.

Ideally I would like to plug my password manager to generate an address and automatically add email filters in place.

Although I was thinking about a service that would just give randomalphanumeric@example.com for all its users, so they would be on the same host and no connection between addresses could be implied. It could or even should be receive only.

Re: Microsoft adding support for custom '+' email addresses in Office 365

#63

Finally. This has only been allowed since RFC 822 (1982). Is there any reason why Microsoft did not support this from the beginning (of Exchange)?

1982? Back then Microsoft's attitude toward the Internet was "embrace, extend, and suffocate." It made little sense for them to work with the nuances of standards, according their business model back then. I have added this capability to every commercial web property I've worked on.

> I have added this capability to every commercial web property I've worked on.

I tried doing email validation the modern way: if '@' in emailfield then return True else 'email address needs an @'. The user gets a confirmation email anyway, and the sign-up process was literally name, email, tick a box that you read the privacy policy, and click continue, so they can just re-do that if they typo'd the address.

Iirc the boss decided to set requirements for a regex that I was to implement instead. Or maybe he made the regex and I tweaked it saying "this won't match .amsterdam domains", not sure anymore.

Re: Microsoft adding support for custom '+' email addresses in Office 365

#64

Now if only websites will stop rejecting plus-addressed email addresses as invalid. The most frequent offenders are mom & pop websites that you just _know_ are going to get breached.

The other problem I ran into is spam+sitename@mydomain.com is really awkward to read over the phone. I ended up switching to sitename@email.mydomain.com, which passes all validators and doesn't sound as sketchy. Using a subdomain, I don't seem to catch any of the spam that gets targeted to catchall domain addresses.

Also, I once encountered a site where spam+xyz worked for signup but failed validation on the login form. I think it was something important too, like a utility or bank.

Re: Microsoft adding support for custom '+' email addresses in Office 365

#65

The process for sending email /from/ a + address is tricky. First -- in GMail at least -- you have to explicitly set up a + account as being in your list of "from" accounts and then you have to remember to use it every time you reply! Not to mention forgetting the email I gave them when resetting passwords sucks, too. "Was that foo+hn or foo+ycombinator or foo+ycombinator.com or foo+hackernews or... hm... uhhh..." (Y…

Good point, I've been meaning to make this a feature request in ProtonMail.

Re: Microsoft adding support for custom '+' email addresses in Office 365

#66
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also use this with a "." (email.spam@gmail.com) in Gmail.

Periods are ignored in gmail and anything after a + is also ignored, so all of these will go to the same mailbox: johndoe@gmail.com john.doe@gmail.com j.o.h.n.d.o.e@gmail.com johndoe+spam@gmail.com john....doe+spam@gmail.com but johndoe.spam@gmail.com wouldn't go to the same mailbox.

john...doe@gmail.com doesn’t seem to work though. I don’t think Gmail takes multiple dots.

Re: Microsoft adding support for custom '+' email addresses in Office 365

#67
post #37
post #5

FastMail had some of the cleverest ideas for plus addressing. username+tag@fastmail.fm could be given away as tag@username.fastmail.fm

Nowadays I just use tag@mydomain when I interact with websites.

Now adays I simply don't care about spam. It goes in the spam box and is a wasted effort for the criminal

Re: Microsoft adding support for custom '+' email addresses in Office 365

#68

Now if only websites will stop rejecting plus-addressed email addresses as invalid. The most frequent offenders are mom & pop websites that you just _know_ are going to get breached.

Odd that you are talking about security breaches with this..

I figured sites wouldn't want to accept it because they know you are most likely filtering their emails so they have a much less chance of getting through to you.

If someone is stealing emails/passwords from a site obviously they will just strip characters after the plus to obtain your normal email address?

Re: Microsoft adding support for custom '+' email addresses in Office 365

#69

Finally. This has only been allowed since RFC 822 (1982). Is there any reason why Microsoft did not support this from the beginning (of Exchange)?

I've been using "Microsoft 365" since 2012, outlook w/ a custom domain and all the grandfathered features. The +tag has always been supported, and I can't really tell what the difference between "Office 365" and "Microsoft 365" is, since the latter appears to include the former, if not identical.

Microsoft recently renamed a majority of their products yet again because if it wasn't confusing enough already, it's even more confusing now!

"Microsoft 365" now includes all of Windows 10, Office 365 (Office on PC) and Azure. This is more geared towards the home market.

Then, there's "Office 365 for Business" which as the name implies is more for business/corporate customers.

It looks like your custom domain is using the old Outlook.com/Hotmail architecture, which already supported + in email addresses - while Microsoft's corporate offering (running on a cloud based Exchange Server) still doesn't, and they're pushing support for it out later this year.

Re: Microsoft adding support for custom '+' email addresses in Office 365

#70

Now if only websites will stop rejecting plus-addressed email addresses as invalid. The most frequent offenders are mom & pop websites that you just _know_ are going to get breached.

I use shopname@firstname.lastname.email, with my own lastname.email domain. Fastmail makes configuring your dns records for this super simple. It's always fun interacting with customer service reps when they for example confirm my email address... "errrrrr yeah so we email you at ourname@...?"

I've done that for nearly twenty years now. Importantly, it allows one to trace how your email gets distributed and stolen.
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