Your Email is Trash

This was an idea we had a while ago, and I thought someone should make a Firefox extension to solve it. It turns out that Gmail had it solved all along, and I even knew about it.

Gmail has this slick feature where you can append "+" and anything else you want between your user name and the "@" sign. For example, floydpink+coolpeoplefrommyblog@gmail.com. This would go to my usual email address, but the TO: field would be exactly as above. This enables you to use labels to filter these messages wherever.

Now, I had used this in the past to send myself notes. It never dawned on me that it could be used to create disposable email addresses. With Gmail invites being so plentiful, I was trying to use multiple accounts to create disposable addresses. This is much better, as everything funnels to your primary account, yet you have virtually unlimited addresses. Now, when I am on a new site that wants me to register, and for some reason I don't just use BugMeNot, I can create a new email address such as floydpink+youlovespam.com@gmail.com. Then, I create a filter and/or label. From that point, I can see just how much Spam and email is generated by that one site.

Here is a link to the lifehacker post that enlightened me.