Plus and dot tricks beyond Gmail
Almost everyone first meets the “plus trick” on Gmail: add +anything before the @ and mail still arrives, so you can tell which site leaked your address. The dot trick — john.smith equals johnsmith — is Gmail folklore too. But these are not universal. Other providers each play by their own rules, and one of the Gmail rules is Gmail-only. Here is what actually works where.
The one rule that is Gmail-only
Moving the dots around — j.o.h.n@… landing in john@… — works on Gmail only. Every other big provider treats dots as real: on Outlook, iCloud, Proton, Fastmail and Yahoo, john.smith and johnsmith are two different people. So outside Gmail, forget the dot trick and use plus-tags instead.
Which providers support the plus trick
| Provider | Plus-tags (+label) | Dots | Bonus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gmail | Yes | Ignored | see the Gmail Generator |
| Outlook / Hotmail / Live | Yes | Significant | — |
| iCloud | Yes | Significant | Hide My Email (separate feature) |
| Proton Mail | Yes | Significant | full aliases via SimpleLogin |
| Fastmail | Yes | Significant | subdomain addressing + Masked Email |
| Yahoo | No | Significant | “disposable addresses” (needs setup) |
The tool above builds the correct alias for whichever one you pick, and reminds you when dots do not behave like Gmail.
Fastmail's extra: a whole namespace
Fastmail goes further than a single +. With subdomain addressing any name works as anything@you.fastmail.com, which sites are far less likely to strip than a +. Its Masked Email feature also mints random, per-site addresses on demand — close to what a temporary mailbox does, but tied to your paid account.
Yahoo and the ones without a plus
Yahoo never adopted + addressing. Instead it has disposable addresses: you pick a base keyword once in the settings, then hand out base-shop@yahoo.com, base-forum@yahoo.com, and so on. It works, but it needs that one-time setup in the account — there is nothing to generate on the fly.
When a site rejects the plus
The catch is the same one the Gmail trick has: plenty of sign-up forms either strip the +label or refuse the + character outright. And anyone can read your real address by deleting everything after it — a plus-alias hides nothing and cannot really be switched off, because the mail still lands in your one inbox. If you have collected a pile of these, the address normalizer folds Gmail aliases back to the real inbox so you can see who is who.
Or skip the trick entirely
Plus-tags are handy for a quick label, but when you want an address that is genuinely separate — one a site can't strip back to your real inbox, and one you can abandon the moment it starts getting spam — a throwaway address is cleaner. Generate one here, or, for a supply that is yours alone, use a separate address for every website on your own domain.