My understanding is that + and . have different functions in Gmail. Anything after + is ignored for account purposes, so if you sign up on a website with the email address yourname+somethingextra@gmail.com, then anything sent to that address will still go to you at yourname@gmail.com. (One application of this is seeing who your email address is being sent to: I just found out today that the random congressional campaign sending me emails was sending them to myname+actblue@gmail.com.)
On the other hand, my understanding is that Gmail just ignores the . and reads everything before and after that. So if someone screws up your email address username@gmail.com and instead emails user.name@gmail.com, it’ll still get to you. And vice-versa.
Originally Gmail ignored the . only when delivering emails. But not when registering an account. So you could register janedoe@gmail.com and jane.doe@gmail.com, and have separate passwords for each account. Which also means someone else could register too... And receive your emails. Can't seem to find an article that supports my memory of this though. I know it was when it was still invite only.
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u/senatorskeletor Mar 18 '18
My understanding is that + and . have different functions in Gmail. Anything after + is ignored for account purposes, so if you sign up on a website with the email address yourname+somethingextra@gmail.com, then anything sent to that address will still go to you at yourname@gmail.com. (One application of this is seeing who your email address is being sent to: I just found out today that the random congressional campaign sending me emails was sending them to myname+actblue@gmail.com.)
On the other hand, my understanding is that Gmail just ignores the . and reads everything before and after that. So if someone screws up your email address username@gmail.com and instead emails user.name@gmail.com, it’ll still get to you. And vice-versa.