Timeless Tales

There are emails and emails and then their is GMAIL. I thought all their was to an email is a unique id and the usual read, compose, send cycle. Then I came across this nice little GMail tip tucked somewhere in a Google How to. And as all tips go, this one can be put to some nice uses. If you are reading this tip for the first time, its all thanks to the Google geeks, say the thanks not to me. Just as I "discovered" it and found some uses for it, I hope you do too.

So here's the little tip for all you GMail users and the GMail newbie.

Let's say your address is SantaClaus@gmail.com (Believe me, Uncle Santa would be the happiest to get this tip. It will take care of all his mails on Christmas Eve)

Any email sent to the permutations of the id will be forwarded to your email. What kind of permutations, you might ask? Like these, for example -

Santa.Claus@gmail.com

S.antaClaus@gmail.com

Sant.aClaus@gmail.com

...and so on with the dots.

You can play around with the placement of the dots. The fun doesn't end here. You can place multiple dots too, like - S.a.n.t.a.C.l.a.u.s@gmail.com, though anybody with such an id would be quite "dotty" !

Their is another interesting feature up GMail's sleeve and it is called 'Plus Addressing'. The way it works is simplicity itself. You can tweak your main GMail account for some special purposes. Just follow me...

First go to the Settings option in your Email. Navigate to Filters  Create new filter.

Here in the "To" field enter your email ID + the name you would like to create. For e.g.; if your GMail ID is SantaClaus@gmail.com, you can create a filter - SantaClaus+gifts@gmail.com for all your mails regarding gifts.

Next you need to specify where you would like the mails to this ID sent to. You can select any of the five options...

Now, as Santa you can use the SantaClaus+gifts@gmail.com and all your mails using this id will be filtered according to your selection.

This is quite handy for organizing your Inbox. For example, their may be some forum mails or newsletter which you just want to archive for a later read. You can use a specially created id just like this for sorting them. Another use that I find really useful is to use this feature to create a temporary id and delete it when I no longer need it. I am sure you will be able to find your own uses for this nifty GMail trick.

As for Santa, does he have a GMail id?