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> If you have your own domain you can use a catch all/wildcard address, eg. @mydomain.com I've done this before. You will get a shitload of spam. I recommend
by sbov 8y ago
> If you have your own domain you can use a catch all/wildcard address, eg. @mydomain.com
I've done this before. You will get a shitload of spam. I recommend suffixing the user of all addresses with something you want to go to your inbox.
E.g. I use *.r@mydomain.com (r for "real"). Anything that doesn't end in .r@mydomain.com never hits my main inbox.
- NightlyDev 8y agoYou don't use wildcard addresses for this, you use sub/plus-addresses. That way the spam problem is completely avoided and multiple users per domain will work normally.
- ndnxhs 8y agoI'd use something else not plus because gmail uses plus so spammers may be aware they can change the plus to anything
- css 8y agoBeen using a wildcard for one of my email domains for years (facebook@..., linkedin@... etc) and never once have I had issues with spam. Everything for services I dont care about goes through SpamAssassin on the mail server and items that pass get dumped to Gmail, where only "ham" messages will get forwarded through to my real inbox.
- johnnyfaehell 8y agoI think they were using their catch-all for non-transactional/newsletter emails. I have a catch-all for websites and then another that I give to people to email me on. This lets me see emails sent to me by a person easily while having separate email addresses for each site.
- usrusr 8y agoDo you have catchall directly on the second level domain (@mydomain.com) or do you only catchall a specific subdomain (@mail.mydomain.com)? I'd expect a very big difference in the volume of blue sky spam between those two. If GP sbov has the catchall directly on mydomain.com, then restricting the value space to *.r will make a meaningful difference. Having the "validating substring" in front of the @ will actually make it easier when you have to use the email address in vocal communication: many humans are unaccustomed to encountering more than one dot after the at.
- css 8y agoYep, directly on the second level domain. I do not use a mail subdomain.
- nothrabannosir 8y agoSince we’re sharing anecdotes: I do this presently and get very little spam to random addresses. I’ve been on this scheme for about a decade now. All spam is to a specific address, which I’d given out.
- techsupporter 8y ago> I recommend suffixing the user of all addresses with something you want to go to your inbox. I use a subdomain. *@abc.example.com goes to my CatchAll folder. usernames@example.com go to their respective users. There are no equivalent names between @abc.example.com and @example.com so if anyone gets cute[0] and tries stripping out subdomains, the messages are rejected. Also, subdomains are common enough that no one thinks anything of it. As a nice bonus, the subdomain can also be directed elsewhere. I've aimed it at various "we automatically file your e-mail" type scripts and services before, just to try them out. 0 - Spammers absolutely try to get cute and drop the subdomain. For example, in the Dropbox leak, dropbox@abc.example.com and db@abc.example.com of mine were leaked. I see tons of spam attempts to dropbox@example.com and db@example.com daily.
- _red 8y agoThats a good solution. For 15 years or so I just used the user.site@domain.com approach. But in the last 4 or 5 years, the spammers have gotten smarter and now are stripping off the site and just emailing user@domain.com. Yours is a good solution.
- hendersoon 8y agoI use a wildcard on my domain. Spam filtering is _really_ good these days. It truly is not a problem. I get tons of spam, and it's all filtered.