[blop]

I still run my own email system (postfix/dovecot for imap), mostly for one reason: the virtual username function of postfix:

I configured postfix with:

    recipient_delimiter = .

which gives me unlimited dynamic virtual addresses (username.<something>@mydomain), so I know where spam/leaks come from if I get unsolicited mail directed to `username.<unique_name_per_registration>`, and it makes it trivial to block.

I know that you can do the same thing with google addresses using + as a delimited, but the + sign is often not allowed in dumb email checks. Also spammers probably know about + and strip it automatically anyway...

[vbezhenar]

If you're running your own server, you can just setup catch-all account and use something like $(printf %s news.ycombinator.com | sha256sum | head -c 12)@mymail.com for further privacy.

[adtac]

You don't need to run your own email server for this. I do this with a catch-all in Fastmail for $50/year or something. I'm pretty sure Gmail and most others can do this too.

[wpietri]

I've been doing something with dash as the recipient delimiter since the late 1990s and it's been great. But that became a pain when I wanted to switch to hosted email, as many providers wouldn't support it.

I eventually ended up at Fastmail, as they let you build custom Sieve scripts that can do this kind of remapping without having to run your own mail server.

[southerntofu]

Love that, too! I've always been amazed that spammers aren't able (to my knowledge) to defeat such a simple scheme by removing the . or + in the local part.

[desas]

Gmail works with . as delimiter as well as +

[blop]

with gmail you can do:

    foo+anything  => redirected to foo
    foo.something => redirected to foosomething (so . is not the same as +)

The + isn't always accepted in dumb email checks though, and spammers know about it...

[MaKey]

I believe you can insert dots as you wish but not use it like the plus sign. So [e-mail] is the same as [e-mail] but [e-mail] is another account than [e-mail].

[authed]

> so I know where spam/leaks come from

unless they use BCC

[quesera]

Deliver to address is always in the headers, even if message is Bcc'ed to you.

[authed]

that's good to know.