This Handy Gmail Tip Instantly Helps Increase Your Online Security

Simple yet clever

Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash

The internet continues to be a cesspool of scammers, hackers, and thieves. Every day that goes by is another day that ne’er-do-wells could be improperly accessing your data and information. Once someone gets your name, email address, and birthday, they can do a lot to try and break into your accounts. This is an ongoing problem that affects anyone and everyone that spends any amount of time online. But there is something that can help mitigate these risks. Thanks to a little-known feature of Gmail, you can boost your internet security today and in the future.

This security tip revolves around the fact that Google built in something called Dot Blindness into their email servers. That means that Google does not recognize addresses with dots as any different from emails without dots. This might sound like a big deal, but it can have various different uses that can help protect you.

Dot Blindness

Dot Blindness is an interesting feature that few people know about. This means that adding a dot to your email address will not change the recipient. Say you created an email back in the day and that email address has been used for everything. Having one email tied to various accounts increases the risk that your address will be compromised. But making additional email accounts can be a pain in the butt. That is where Dot Blindness comes into play.

Say your original email address reads like this:

ExampleName@gmail.com

Dot Blindness means that you can write your email address in the following ways, and you will still receive emails to your account.

Example.Name@gmail.com

Ex.ampleName@gmail.com

Exam.ple.Na.me@gmail.com

Every single one of these addresses will send mail directly to your original ExampleName@gmail.com inbox.

Ways To Use Dot Blindness To Your Advantage

While Google respects Dot Blindness, not every site does. And that is a good thing. That means if you sign up for Netflix with your email with a dot in the middle, it will only recognize that…