How2NotFail

If you ever need to register an account somewhere and you don’t entirely trust that the site you are registering at wont send you spam, there’s a simple trick you can use if you have a Gmail account (and some other email providers) to help you organize and weed out any spam you receive down the line.

Whenever you are registering on a site, you can enter a + sign followed by a tag after your Gmail user name. For example if you are signing up for a car newsletter and your actual address is example@gmail.com you can instead enter example+car@gmail.com, the mail will still be sent to your normal inbox however if at any time down the line you notice spam being sent to this extension, you can not only tell where it originated from but simply filter all mail sent to example+car@gmail.com directly into your spam folder.

If you discover a site has spread your email to advertisers, simply:

1. Go to the Settings link at the top right of the Gmail homepage
2. Click on Filters, then Create a new filter
3. Type the tag you used (+car)  into the “To:” field
4. hit Next Step

From there you can set Gmail to simply delete all emails you receive addressed to that particular tag.