Logged into my email via another mail

Question

my email is "foobar@gmail.com". I tried logging in "foo.bar@gmail.com" just to see if I had created such an email some time ago.

I received a notification in my phone to reset password and log in. I did that and to my surprise instead of being logged in "foo.bar@gmail.com" I was logged in "foobar@gmail.com", and also had a new password :/

Can anyone explain what happened? I've heard that when you create a mail, you actually own all the mails like the following: "foobar@gmail.com1" etc.

Is this something similar or?

Thank you!

Answer 1

I've heard that when you create a mail, you actually own all the mails like the following: "foobar@gmail.com1" etc.

You don't own those alternate names. What happens is that gmail ignores the "." in the left side of the address. No matter where the dot is, or isn't, the result is that the mail ends up in the same inbox.

What happened is that you must have asked to reset the password. When you completed the process of changing the password, it logged you into the same mailbox, exactly as designed. If it didn't endup in the same place that would mean that moving the dot would cause mail not to get to you.