Email tags let you use one email address as many unique addresses. When you add a +tag to your email (like [email protected]), most email providers treat it as a unique address while still delivering everything to your main inbox.
Common Use Cases
Testing & Development
If you’re testing a system that won’t accept duplicate email addresses, you can use tags to create unique entries without managing multiple inboxes. Instead of creating [email protected], [email protected], etc., just use [email protected], [email protected].
Service Tracking
Sign up for different services with tagged emails to see who’s selling your data. Use [email protected] for Netflix, [email protected] for Amazon. If you get spam sent to the Netflix-tagged address, you know where it came from.
Organization
Create automatic sorting rules in your email client. All emails to [email protected] can go to a Shopping folder, [email protected] to a Work folder.
Multiple Accounts
Some platforms let you create multiple accounts with the same base email if you use different tags. Useful for managing separate profiles or testing different user types.
Unpredictable & Secure
Random tags like [email protected] can’t be guessed or systematically generated by others. If you’re testing user registration systems, random tags prevent conflicts with predictable patterns that others might use.
Development Testing
When testing applications that need unique emails, random tags eliminate the mental overhead of thinking up new identifiers. You can rapidly generate [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] without worrying about duplicates.
Load Testing
For automated testing scripts that create hundreds of user accounts, random tags ensure each test run uses completely unique email addresses without manual intervention.
Multiple Identifier Layers
You can combine descriptive and random elements: [email protected] or [email protected]. This gives you both human-readable context and guaranteed uniqueness.
How It Works
Most major email providers (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc.) ignore everything after the + symbol when delivering mail, but keep the full address intact for the recipient. The receiving system sees unique addresses, but you get all emails in one inbox.
Note: Not all systems support email tags - some strip the + portion or reject tagged emails entirely. Always test with your target system first.