Gmail Variations Generator
Every Dot, Plus Tag and Capital Spelling of One Inbox

What a Gmail Variations Generator Does

A Gmail variations generator turns one Gmail address into many. Each new address looks different. Yet every one of them delivers to the inbox you already own.

That works because Gmail ignores two things. It ignores dots in a name, and it ignores everything after a plus sign. So jin.harbor@gmail.com and jinharbor+shop@gmail.com both land with jinharbor.

The tool also adds capital letters and the googlemail.com domain. Then you can copy the list, or download it as a text file or a CSV.

Every variation is produced by your own browser, on your own device. Whatever address you type stays on this page. That matters, because an inbox name is personal.

Why Dots in a Gmail Name Change Nothing

Gmail does not read dots in the name part of an address. Google says so on its help page, Dots don't matter in Gmail addresses. So jin.harbor, j.i.n.h.a.r.b.o.r and jinharbor are one and the same inbox.

A name with n letters has n minus 1 gaps between them. Each gap can hold a dot or stay empty. As a result, a name with 10 letters has 512 spellings, and one with 12 letters has 2,048.

People call this the Gmail dot trick. Nothing about this relies on a bug or a loophole. It is how Gmail has always worked, and the generator simply lists every spelling for you.

Gmail Plus Addressing Explained

Plus addressing lets you add a tag after your name. Write jinharbor+shop@gmail.com, and Gmail delivers it to jinharbor@gmail.com. The tag can be almost any word. The standard name for this idea is sub-addressing, and RFC 5233 describes it.

The tag stays visible in the To line of every message. So you can see which site wrote to you. And if a shop shares your address, the tag tells you who did it.

Why a Tag Beats a Dot for Tracking

Dots are hard to read at a glance. A tag has a word in it. For example, jinharbor+newsletter and jinharbor+bank explain themselves.

Use dots when a site refuses the plus sign. Use tags when you want to know who wrote to you.

Googlemail.com and Capital Letters

Gmail also owns the domain googlemail.com. Mail sent there reaches the same inbox. The name began in Germany and the United Kingdom, where Gmail first ran under the name Google Mail.

Capital letters make no difference to Gmail either. Jin.Harbor@gmail.com is the same as jin.harbor@gmail.com. However, some sites keep the case you type, so capitals give you one more spelling to use.

Make Dot Variations

Type your address and keep Dots ticked. Variations appear while you type, so you never press a button. By default it shows the spellings with the fewest dots first, which keeps the list neat.

Choose Random pick to spread a short list across all the spellings. Meanwhile, the Dots menu caps the number of dots at 1, 2 or 3. A name with a single dot looks far more natural than one with eight.

Make Plus Tag Variations

Tick Plus tags and type your tags, one per line or split by commas. Want a series? Type site under Numbered tags and set the count to 10. You then get site1 to site10.

Want tags nobody can guess? Set Random tags to 5, and each address gets six random characters. Because the tags are random, they never repeat your site names.

Mix Dots With Tags

Tick Mix dots with tags, and every dot spelling gets every tag. A short name can grow into hundreds of addresses this way. The Show up to menu keeps the list from running away.

Pick the Right Format

One per line suits spreadsheets and most tools. A comma or semicolon list pastes straight into the To field of a mail app. Gmail search builds a query such as deliveredto:(a OR b), so you can find mail sent to your variations.

Download .csv adds the kind of variation, the dot count and the tag for every address. In addition, the file starts with a byte order mark, so Excel reads accented tags correctly.

The Same Inbox Checker

Paste two addresses, and the checker says whether Gmail sends both to one place. It removes the dots, drops the tag and treats googlemail.com as gmail.com.

So you can settle an argument fast. For example, is j.inharbor+a@googlemail.com the same inbox as jinharbor@gmail.com? Yes, it is.

Sort Mail With Gmail Filters

A tag becomes a free sorting rule. Open Gmail settings, choose Filters and Blocked Addresses, then create a filter. Type deliveredto:jinharbor+shop@gmail.com in the Has the words box.

Next, pick an action. You can apply a label, skip the inbox or mark the mail as read. As a result, receipts, newsletters and sign-ups sort themselves.

Where Variations Help

Developers test a sign-up form with five test users and no extra inboxes. Shoppers tag each store, so a leak points to one company. Freelancers keep client mail apart from personal mail.

Writers and marketers also use tags to see which landing page brought a sign-up. Because every message still arrives in one place, nothing gets lost.

Use Variations Fairly

Variations are for sorting and testing your own mail. Do not use them to dodge a limit, such as one free trial per person. Many services spot variations and block them. Doing it anyway can break their terms and cost you the account.

So keep it honest. Use one inbox, label it well, and let the tags do the work.

What Does Not Work

Some forms reject the plus sign, because their rules are too strict. Others remove dots before they compare addresses, and others do not. Therefore test one variation before you use a hundred.

Other domains follow the rules of their own provider. A Google Workspace address or a Yahoo address may treat dots and tags differently. Check before you rely on them.

Rules for a New Gmail Name

If you plan a new account, the name needs 6 to 30 letters or digits. Dots do not count toward that total. You may use letters, numbers and dots, but not a dot at the start or the end, and not two dots in a row.

The generator warns you when a name breaks one of these rules. Google decides in the end, so you still have to confirm that the name is free.