How to Create Multiple Email Addresses in One Gmail Account

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Most major email providers like Gmail and Outlook have “hidden” rules for how they read addresses. You can exploit these to create new identities without ever setting up a new account.

The Plus Trick (+): Add a plus sign and any word after your username (e.g., user+work@gmail.com). Gmail ignores everything after the “+”, but websites view it as a completely unique email.

The Dot Trick (.): Gmail ignores periods in usernames. To Google, j.o.h.n.d.o.e@gmail.com is the same as johndoe@gmail.com, but to a site like X or Facebook, it’s a fresh, unregistered address.

You can use one dot, multiple dots, or any combination. Here are several examples:

  • Single Dots:
    • j.ohndoe@gmail.com
    • jo.hndoe@gmail.com
    • joh.ndoe@gmail.com
    • john.doe@gmail.com
    • johnd.oe@gmail.com
    • johndo.e@gmail.com
  • Multiple Dots:
    • j.o.h.n.d.o.e@gmail.com
    • j.o.h.n.doe@gmail.com
    • john.d.o.e@gmail.com
    • j.o.h.n.d.o.e@gmail.com

The Strict Rules:

To make sure the email actually arrives in your inbox, follow these three constraints:

  1. No “Double Dots”: You can’t do john..doe@gmail.com.
  2. No Front/Back Dots: It cannot be .johndoe@gmail.com or johndoe.@gmail.com.
  3. Gmail Only: Remember, if you try this with a Yahoo or Outlook address, it won’t work—they will try to deliver it to a different person!

Pro Tip for johndoe@gmail.com:

If you are signing up for something you think might result in spam, use the “Plus Trick” and the “Dot Trick” together:

  • j.o.h.n.doe+spam@gmail.com

Google will still deliver this to your main johndoe@gmail.com inbox, but it gives you an incredibly specific way to track who is emailing you.

The Domain Swap: If you have a @gmail.com address, you also automatically own the same address ending in @googlemail.com. You can use both to register for two different profiles on the same site.

The Pain Points This Solves

Using one master inbox with aliases fixes the four biggest headaches of modern digital life:

  1. Management Fatigue (The Login Headache): You no longer have to log in and out of 10 different email accounts to find a single verification code or password reset link. Everything—from every “identity”—arrives in one place.
  2. Untraceable Data Leaks: If you sign up for a site using yourname+SiteName@gmail.com, and you later start getting spam at that specific address, you know exactly which company sold your data.
  3. The “Single Point of Failure” Risk: Using your real, main email for every sketchy service makes you a prime target for credential stuffing. Aliases act as “buffer” addresses; if one is compromised, you can just delete that alias without losing your main account.
  4. Automatic Organization: You can set up “Inbox Rules” to automatically label or folder emails based on the alias used. For example, any mail sent to yourname+newsletters@gmail.com can be skipped directly to an archive folder so it never clutters your main view.

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