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This is exactly my use-case and experience after many years of custom catch-all'ing. I've noticed a couple breaches, and also a few unexpected transfers of my
by adamfeldman 4y ago
This is exactly my use-case and experience after many years of custom catch-all'ing.
I've noticed a couple breaches, and also a few unexpected transfers of my email address between semi-related parties.
Just once it appeared an address was sold via a marketing list, after filling out a lead-form for a free online conference hosted by multiple companies that you've seen on HN.
Surprisingly, unsubscribing tends to stop emails from everyone.
- f4c39012 4y agoSlightly easier* than running a domain, i've had luck with myemail+CompanyX@gmail.com when signing up to CompanyX. Gmail handles the '+' transparently (in the same way as it ignores '.') and delivers the email to myemail@gmail.com. It is fun to receive a survey about "an anonymous company you have used in the past"... sent to myemail+uber@gmail.com. *yet less reliable, '+' in email addresses isn't always accepted, and when it is sometimes only partly, e.g. signup works but password reset doesn't
- nibbleshifter 4y agoTbh with GSuite + a 5$ domain I get catch alls for minimal effort. I used to use + addressing schemes, but abandoned it for the reasons you mentioned (websites breaking horribly).
- adamfeldman 4y agoExactly. Catch-all setup on Google Workspace/G Suite/too-many-renames is usually obtuse but it’s a one-time tutorial effort.
- nibbleshifter 4y agoI wonder if there's a way to script setting it up to be honest, I end up about an hour deep in help docs each time I set up a new domain+email trying to work out how to make a catch all and how to configure the thing so replies come from the right email.
- adamfeldman 4y agoOh, I’ve never realized replies could be made to come from the right email. I manually add addresses as-needed (once a month or so). I think there’s an unofficial Terraform provider but I haven’t looked recently.
- ryantgtg 4y agoWouldn’t it trivial for them to strip out all values from + to @ prior to selling your address?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- nibbleshifter 4y agoYes. I've written code that does this for parsing leaked email lists before as part of a normalizing step.
- archi42 4y agoNot sure why this is downvoted. I can imagine non-nefarious reasons to collect these lists.
- EGreg 4y agoWhy do people downvote stuff that simply triggers them? This is useful info
- hammyhavoc 4y agoBecause it's cruise control for not needing to justify their point of view whilst still pushing their perspective. Sick, right? Votes and e-peen points have to be the worst aspect of HN and Reddit.
- DocTomoe 4y agoIt's spam detection evasion. Also, depending on the legislative framework, it might be illegal: If I give company my email address with a plus and an identifier in it, I give them permission to contact me under that specific email (with the plus on it). If I as a result receive emails under another address (without the plus on it), this might be a GDPR violation.
- 4y ago
- jdmichal 4y agoSometimes it's only partly supported, in the sense that the website will just break if your email has a `+`. I'm pretty sure I encountered that one with both Disney and Royal Caribbean reservation workflows just flat out breaking.
- remus 4y ago> I'm pretty sure I encountered that one with both Disney and Royal Caribbean reservation workflows just flat out breaking. My favourite is services that let you sign up with a + in the address but then break when you try and login or reset your password.
- zimpenfish 4y agoI switched to '-' instead of '+' which was a trivial change in exim.conf and saved my sanity because there was just too many places which either break on '+' or refuse to accept it in the first place.
- kevinmgranger 4y agoI used to do this, until I had to reply to an automated email for some customer support system. It rejected all my replies because the From: didn't match.
- sneak 4y agoYou can send emails with any From: header you wish.
- dotancohen 4y agoNot from within Gmail's web interface. I personally use Thunderbird and AWS SES to send mail, but many people who grew up on web interfaces are intimidated by Thunderbird.
- denton-scratch 4y ago> many people who grew up on web interfaces are intimidated by Thunderbird. That surprises me; it's web interfaces that intimidate me.
- dotancohen 4y agoYes, I also prefer Thunderbird. But almost nobody that I've introduced it to was interested in using it.
- OJFord 4y agoYeah you can, you can default it to send from the address the email you're replying to was sent to too. It's the only thing I missed when I switched to Fastmail. (Which has since added it too, but not before I left in favour of my own SES-based solution.)
- dotancohen 4y agoI'd love to know how. Tips welcome, thank you.
- overspeed 4y agoI can attest to the unstable handling of '+' suffixed emails. UPS allowed me to ship a package as guest with myemail+ups@gmail.com but wouldn't let me create an account with the same email ID. I had no way to track the package pickup onwards.
- mook 4y agoCan confirm; once signed up as foo+bar@example.com, everything worked (including the confirmation mail)… and then the address was automatically normalized (‽) as foobar@example.com and I could no longer receive any mail (since that's a different account altogether).
- Fnoord 4y agoThere's also the unstable handling of . symbol (dot or dots) in email address before @ symbol. Gmail allows dots in email address before @ and normalizes them, so the same address with or without dots works. This leads to funny behavior such as unlimited account creation with the same email address (yes, + symbol would also work for this but that works almost everywhere and is better known) or my wife thinking she does not have an account while she does, creating a new one instead.
- leaflets2 4y ago> unlimited account creation Nice, hadn't thought about :-)
- tome 4y agoHow did they expect you to respond to a survey about an anonymous company?
- dllthomas 4y agoI assume it was a more general survey. Uber might want to know what people are doing for transportation even when it's not Ubering.