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ICEBreaker

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 12, 2007
270
3
Dear Apple users,

As many of you know, Google has a special address alias feature where the user can add a "+" followed by anything after the username part of the address (e.g. myaddress+macrumors@gmail.com). This allows setting up filters and other rules to deal with emails. I love this feature, but apparently Apple doesn't.

My email address used to be "myaddress+accounts@gmail.com", which I use to deal with various accounts info from various companies. Apple accepted this email format (some websites still do not) and everything looked good. I even get emails from Apple - except the verification email. No matter how many times I ask to resend the verification email, I never received it. Needless to say I did check the Trash folder.

Then it occurred to me to change the address and remove the +accounts part. Verification received. Sigh... Problem now is I have to make a custom rule to deal with Apple account emails.

Anyway, writing to let others know, in case they run into a similar problem.

- - -
 

impaler

macrumors 6502
Feb 20, 2006
474
52
USA
Dear Apple users,

As many of you know, Google has a special address alias feature where the user can add a "+" followed by anything after the username part of the address (e.g. myaddress+macrumors@gmail.com). This allows setting up filters and other rules to deal with emails. I love this feature, but apparently Apple doesn't.

My email address used to be "myaddress+accounts@gmail.com", which I use to deal with various accounts info from various companies. Apple accepted this email format (some websites still do not) and everything looked good. I even get emails from Apple - except the verification email. No matter how many times I ask to resend the verification email, I never received it. Needless to say I did check the Trash folder.

Then it occurred to me to change the address and remove the +accounts part. Verification received. Sigh... Problem now is I have to make a custom rule to deal with Apple account emails.

Anyway, writing to let others know, in case they run into a similar problem.

- - -

Also, iCloud email address work with the "+" designator. I've used that to slightly increase security on my iCloud mail. I use the + and the name of the site I'm logging into. The other benefit is, if I start getting spam sent to that one address, I know where it came from and can make a decision whether to close the account...especially if I told them I didn't want my email address shared.
 

ICEBreaker

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 12, 2007
270
3
Thanks Impaler for your reply. I concur and I do exactly the same thing. It's an excellent way to find out who was the one who leaked/sold your email.
 

Rigby

macrumors 603
Aug 5, 2008
6,222
10,168
San Jose, CA
The problem is that the spammers are also aware of the "+" syntax, and many simply remove the appendix. It's better to use real aliases for things that have a spam risk. The ability to set up 10 aliases without having to create lots of different accounts is one of the main reasons why I prefer Outlook.com over Gmail these days. Also, for temporary things I like to use throw-away addresses from services like "10 Minute Mail".
 
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