What’s an email alias?

An email alias is simply an alternative email address. While you may be able to set up a totally different alias via your email provider, it’s also possible to use a + to create multiple different email addresses.

What happens?

With Gmail all of these messages would arrive in the inbox …

• Emma@gmail.com
• Emma+test@gmail.com
• Emma+12345678@gmail.com

It’s just the same with hotmail.

• Emma@hotmail.com
• Emma+test@hotmail.com
• Emma+12345678@hotmail.com

N.B. Don’t try this with your Uni account, as the message will just disappear  you won’t receive it, and the sender will get a bounce back.

What’s the benefit of this?

Imagine you’re signing up for a new newsletter – if you put your email address as Emma+newsletter@gmail.com – you could then create a rule that will send all items sent to that address into a single folder.

Or perhaps you want to be more specific – Emma+technews@hotmail.com – if you use that for one news letter, and then you get messages from a totally different source to that specific address, you’ll know who shared your email address.

Read even more suggestions about using these features