If you have a gmail account like the cool kids these days, then there is an amazing feature that you didn’t know about, it’s the + feature (I’m not sure what google officially calls it), I also like to call it “catch the bastards” feature (explanation coming later).

So what is it about? Basically, you’re allowed to add a keyword, an identifier, a spell, whatever you want to call it after your username in your email address where you separate them with a ‘+’ (plus character).

Here’s an example: Let’s say I want to sign up to a new website, for instance, http://clipboard.com. My email address is “gshahine@gmail.com”, my username is “gshahine” so when I get asked to enter my email address, I set it to “gshahine+clipboard@gmail.com”. Now, when I receive emails from http://clipboard.com, they show up like this

How awesome is that??? I would kiss a goat right now (I look for the slightest excuse by the way )

Now, you might ask me “But Guy, how would this make my life easier?”. Well, few things off the top of my head:

1. Making your life easier is up to you and it’s all in your head.
2. It allows you to label emails easier, for instance, adding rules for “+family”, “+friends”, “+FYI”…etc
3. It might allow you to identify the bastards that sell your email address to entities that want to you suck your fat (ladies) or enlarge your penis (dudes).
4. You can sound cheesy, where let’s say a beautiful lady that you just met asked for your email address to stay in touch, “gshahine+inlove@gmail.com, bamm, next thing you’ll realize is having breakfast together.