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Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

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Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#231

Post by kelnos »

amingilani wrote: post #144
justusthane wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s weird, but that’s been my experience too. I switched off Gmail (where I got tons of spam, although most properly caught by the spam filter) several years ago, and have received fewer than 200 spam emails in total since switching. I know this because my new host won’t allow the personalized spam filter to be enabled until you’ve received 200 spam. I’m not at all careful to keep my email address hidden on the inte…

Eventually you start getting a bunch of spam. I feel most of mine originated from GitHub and data-leaks. Tip: configure a catch-all to your email address, and use custom email addresses for every website. I love having e.g. news.ycombinator.com@gilani.me and being able to filter out bad email addresses whenever they become tiresome. I've also configured Mailgun on the domain (not what it was intended for but ¯\_(ツ)_/…

I'm the only email address on my domain, and I haven't set up a catch-all. I use my actual email address to sign up for anything that requires a signup. I don't have a junk account, and I don't use +-aliases. I don't hide my address; it's listed on my website, in my HN profile, and likely in a bunch of random places on the web, unobfuscated. In general, I just don't worry about it.

My GMail spam folder has around 10-15 messages in it per day. My inbox is nearly always fine. The nice thing that GMail does is sort promotional emails that it doesn't judge to be outright spam under the "Promotions" category, which I don't see unless I seek it out. That one still isn't that bad, on the order for 10 per day, but it is genuinely stuff I don't care to see.

If I were to move away from GMail (which is on my todo list), I'd have to figure out what to do about those. Likely they mostly have unsubscribe links; after a quick scroll down the list, I think it's nearly all from companies that I do have or had an existing relationship with.

I wish GMail had an "unsubscribe" button so I don't have to hunt through emails for their often-hidden unsubscribe link. Yes, I could click Spam and then "Unsubscribe + Mark Spam", but I really want just "Unsubscribe", but that's not an option.

I do have a fairly uncommon last name, so it's not something that spammers might accidentally put in a word list to use as an email domain, but overall I've just mostly not cared about "protecting" my email address, and it's mostly not been a problem. Is this entirely atypical? If so, I wonder why...

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#232

Post by Izkata »

wnevets wrote: post #101
Santosh83 wrote: post #6

I have been getting financial emails from several people for many years at my GMail ID. They apparently have given my address but without the dot. But what mystifies me is how these people keep going for years without ever realising they aren't getting account transaction emails (from their banks), notifications of stock trades, even OTP emails etc. How is it possible for people to use these services for years withou…

I had someone open a bank account with my email and I called the bank thinking someone was stealing my ID or something. How do people not know their own email address?

I have someone using my email, who best guess doesn't understand Gmail and Twitter are two different things - they have the matching @name on Twitter.

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#233

Post by fnl »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #218
robbyking wrote: post #172

A coworker of mine got an email once containing important scholarship information intended for a high school kid in Florida. He did a little looking online and found the kid's and his parent's actual email addresses and forwarded the email to them. So here's where it gets weird/dumb: the kid replies to my friend and his parents and says, "hey mom, you put the wrong email address on my application, there's no dot in m…

I have a common last name and my email is my first initial and my last name. I get so much misdirected mail that I don’t even try to help these people. I hope John gets to his zoom interview for Deputy Chief of Police later today, because I’m not going to tell him about it.

Happens to me all the time, because my name is fairly common. Weird that Google wont "fix" that.

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#234

Post by treeman79 »

dtparr wrote: post #225
treeman79 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. 99.9% chance no one would care. But people do freak out over this stuff. Knew one guy that saw that a Bank got hacked on the news. Did an nslookup or similar to check the banks site. He was arrested the next day and expelled from college for hacking the bank. Eventually all got cleared up, but screwed up a year of his life

He got expelled for running a DNS query? Do you mean nmap?

Maybe. Was awhile ago

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#235

Post by emberfiend »

mrcu5 wrote: post #185
Santosh83 wrote: post #6

I have been getting financial emails from several people for many years at my GMail ID. They apparently have given my address but without the dot. But what mystifies me is how these people keep going for years without ever realising they aren't getting account transaction emails (from their banks), notifications of stock trades, even OTP emails etc. How is it possible for people to use these services for years withou…

I'm confused. Do people just assume they can think of an email address and Google somehow knows and assigns it to them automatically? Like they're signing up for something and put in "santosh83@gmail.com" and think "My name is Santosh and I was born in '83. Google obviously knows this and will send me this email!" ????????

If you ever figure out why people do this or what their thinking is, let me know, but yeah this actually happens. I have a common name but a long and uncommon surname, and I have name.surname@gmail.com.

This GP from New Zealand signs up for EVERYTHING under my gmail account. A handful of it spam, but mostly important stuff - notifications for financial transactions make up most of the mails I receive.

I have called his offices repeatedly to try to discuss it with him, and even have a reasonable rapport with his secretary, but he never wants to take my calls.

I really cannot figure out why he does it.

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#236

Post by hinkley »

sriku wrote: post #150

Not only do dots not matter, you can suffix "+ " to your user name before the "@gmail.com" and it will still come to your email address. I actually love this "+" feature and use it a lot .. like send an email to "+bookmark@gmail.com" to bookmark a link, or register with "+nospam" and setup a filter for that address if anyone sends me email on that. This is supported by icloud and fastmail too.

Lots of places don't like the + in their email address validation logic.

The dots are probably more reliable, but are not as flexible. The best you could do is a secret code for yourself.

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#237

Post by HelloNurse »

The obvious address of .@gmail.com was still available a couple of years after Gmail was introduced, and I rushed to register it despite already getting a little unintended email on other predictable free mail addresses.

I couldn't anticipate the density of misplaced email (allowing me to link multiple parties to the same idiot), the personal insistence of some people (come on, it's me! Your friend —! What do you mean by "I don't know you"?), the ready-made drama (in varied roles: vanished boyfriend, investor in shady businesses, councilman, delinquent debtor...), the quality of delicate misplaced information (with medical records and resumes topping the more obvious invoices, home addresses and bank letters) and the variety of accounts (including e.g. Spotify and a couple of dating sites).

Over the years, I've noticed a slight decrease in incorrect addresses entered by human beings matched by an increase of automated emails to incorrectly registered accounts.

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#238

Post by curiousgal »

devy wrote: post #116

Dots does matter in GSuite's email addresses (those are the email addresses for enterprise via work or school.) Also in the email name part of the email address, anything after + (plug sign) and before the @ (at sign) don't matter either. [1] This is the same behavior for personal Gmail and GSuite email (Gmail for enterprises) [1]: https://gizmodo.com/how-to-use-the-infinite-number-of-email-...

You'd be surprised how many legacy registration systems break because of the + 'trick'.

Ever since I got a basic Gsuite plan and set up a catch-all email address, I can just use websitename@mydomain and then use filters which is oh so practical!

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#239

Post by kadoban »

Santosh83 wrote: post #6

I have been getting financial emails from several people for many years at my GMail ID. They apparently have given my address but without the dot. But what mystifies me is how these people keep going for years without ever realising they aren't getting account transaction emails (from their banks), notifications of stock trades, even OTP emails etc. How is it possible for people to use these services for years withou…

You can set up filters in gmail to either automatically go to a different folder ("label" they call it), or to just delete them. It's not hard at all once you get used to the interface, and there's a wide variety of rule options.

Re: Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses

#240

Post by slartibardfast0 »

I have a first.last@gmail address from the beta, and after numerous misunderstandings I've learned to use very precise language when attempting to help:

First establish that they're speaking to the wrong person.

Then suggest the nature of their mistake is a simple omission of a letter or number.

never offer a 'no big deal' or de-escalation until they've acknowledged the problem, otherwise the real recipient will never get the email!

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