Gmail Dot Trick vs Plus Alias: Which Should You Use?

Gmail gives you two ways to create alternative addresses that all land in the same inbox: the dot trick (j.ohn@gmail.com) and plus addressing (john+netflix@gmail.com). Both work, but they fail in different situations.

Quick comparison

• Dot trick: unlimited free variations, invisible to most form validators, harder to detect and strip.
• Plus alias: infinite unique tags, semantically clear ("netflix", "shop"), but many signup forms reject the + character outright.

When to use the dot trick

Use dots when the signup form is strict, when you want the address to look normal, or when you want to test whether a service normalizes usernames. Use the DotMail generator to produce every variation at once.

When to use plus alias

Use +tag when the form accepts it and you want the address itself to describe the source ("newsletter", "job-application"). It also makes Gmail filters trivial to write.

Combine both

Nothing stops you from combining them: jo.hn+netflix@gmail.com still lands in john@gmail.com. The dot layer stays even if plus tags are stripped later.