How can I take action on incoming Gmail emails (via a saved filter) that do not include a plus sign in the to line?

Question

I use email aliases for my email account to design incoming email filters for mail sent to me from different sources, for example:

• [email protected]
• [email protected]
• [email protected]

It's easy for me to set up incoming search filters for the "newsletter" or "bills" aliases, so I can select messages sent only to those labels. For example: to:[email protected].

However, I have not figured out a design for an incoming mail filter to take action on emails addressed to my "bare" email, [email protected]. I've tried what I thought would be an exact match, to:"[email protected]", only to find that the filter selects email sent to all three addresses: [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected].

What Gmail incoming mail filter will select only messages sent to [email protected] exactly so I can process them in some way (for example, forwarding them)?

Note: I filed a very similar question recently but I realized after an answer was submitted that I hadn't made it clear that I want to take action upon incoming email to my bare address rather than simply post-process email already received.

Answer 1

The filter you need to use in the Includes the words field is:

to:[email protected] -([email protected] OR [email protected])

Please try it out and let us know how it goes.