I'm currently trying to figure out a good solution for this problem. I do get spam messages very rarely and I'd like to find out which site gave away my address (or was hacked), so I'd like to use different addresses for each registration which are still managed in a central way.
I'd like to be able to:
- Use my main Google/GMail account with it, somehow.
- Set up a new addresses easily and quickly.
- It would be cool if the addresses were created automatically if a mail is sent to it.
- Remove an address, so I won't receive any mails sent to it anymore
- See my emails both per address and all in one list in my mail client (OS X' Mail.app)
So far I've found two possible solutions, both with advantages and disadvantages:
1. Using plus-aliases with Gmail, e.g. firstname.lastname+amazon@gmail.com)
- + No need to create aliases, all emails simply arrive in my main inbox
- + Free and simple, no configuration at all
- - I wouldn't be able remove such addresses, I would still receive spam. I would have to blacklist the addresses instead.
- - Each time I make a new account somewhere, I would have to explicitely create a label/filter rule in Gmail's web interface
- - Many sites don't accept plus signs in email addresses. That's a deal breaker.
2. Using an own domain with Google Apps, e.g. amazon@mydomain.com
So the bottom line is, neither solution is perfect. The first one is more comfortable, but I know I will be pretty annoyed every time I see a "character not allowed" validation error in a registration form.
Is there any way that includes the advantages of both solutions with as less disadvantages as possible? It could be a specific configuration of either method, a combination or something completely different.