# On the use of 'legacy' email addresses. . **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 28, 2022, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-legacy-email-addresses/958601 "2022-01-28T23:59:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-legacy-email-addresses/958601/81 "2022-01-31T05:14:08Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > I did have my e-mail set to use a “Basic HTML” interface, and I run the browser with JavaScript disabled. Most everything works just fine… Except the stuff in your previous post that you were complaining about!🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-legacy-email-addresses/958601/82 "2022-01-31T05:17:39Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Except the stuff in your previous post that you were complaining about! Remember the earlier gmail days when there was always a sidebar with ads based on words in your mail? I quickly discovered that setting up gmail as I did eliminated all that. I worthwhile trade-off, I thought. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-legacy-email-addresses/958601/83 "2022-01-31T05:28:10Z")
I don’t know how the free version looks, but you are handicapping functionality to save all of $6 per month for something that’s surely critical to your life. Google Workspace. ---
**Author:** ![Steven\_Maven](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steven_maven/32/3272_2.png) [@Steven\_Maven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steven_Maven)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-legacy-email-addresses/958601/84 "2022-01-31T07:01:40Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > there is no option to delete everything in my spam folder. I have to click a check-box next to each one to delete them all. > > All deleted mail goes to the trash folder, where it is theoretically automatically deleted after a certain time. But that seems not to happen. In MY Gmail there is a message at the top of both my Spam & Trash folders that says, “Items that have been in [folder name] for more than 30 days will be automatically deleted.” It works. Immediately below that is a “button” which says, “Empty [folder name] now.” (The system won’t let me display a screenshot here.) I’ve tried the buttons & they work, but since the scheduled delete also works, I rarely bother. I don’t have the click-check issue, but in every other app I’ve used with that option, there is a button at the top of the page to “Select All.” Like other members have written here, you must have unintentionally set some features to weird settings. ---
**Author:** ![Steven\_Maven](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steven_maven/32/3272_2.png) [@Steven\_Maven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steven_Maven)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-legacy-email-addresses/958601/85 "2022-01-31T07:03:47Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > What else would expect a spam filter to do? Could it simply discard them? Probably not. That’s a reasonable response. Thanks. Here’s another mystery. Many messages in my Gmail Spam folder are not even addressed to me. For example: To: [Steve@aol.com](mailto:Steve@aol.com) To: [Steven\*\*@aol.com](mailto:Steven**@aol.com) To: [StevenHB.\*\*\*\*\*@aol.com](mailto:StevenHB. ***** @aol.com) To: [boitenormal\*\*\*@aol.com](mailto:boitenormal***@aol.com) How do these messages even get to me? ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-legacy-email-addresses/958601/86 "2022-01-31T07:07:45Z")
> [@Steven\_Maven](#): > > Could it simply discard them? Probably not. Sure - it’s easy to set it to automatically delete anything sent to the Spam folder if that’s what you prefer. But most people prefer to glance through the folder periodically just in case there was a false positive. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-legacy-email-addresses/958601/87 "2022-01-31T07:10:58Z")
> [@Steven\_Maven](#): > > How do these messages even get to me? If you are included in a recipient list as bcc (blind carbon copy) then you won’t show up in the “To” field. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-legacy-email-addresses/958601/88 "2022-01-31T07:16:09Z")
> [@Steven\_Maven](#): > > In MY Gmail there is a message at the top of both my Spam & Trash folders that says, “Items that have been in [folder name] for more than 30 days will be automatically deleted.” It works. Immediately below that is a “button” which says, “Empty [folder name] now.” I can get that too if I sign in using Firefox, where I have Javascript enabled (because that’s what I use to get into SDMB and other sites that need JS). Yikes. What a bunch of extraneous clutter! I’ll stick with the much plainer non-JS version. I’m glad that Google mail still supports it. > [@Steven\_Maven](#): > > Here’s another mystery. Many messages in my Gmail Spam folder are not even addressed to me. For example: I get a lot of that too. What’s stranger is, I can look at the complete headers and even there, there isn’t any clear reason why I should get it. I would have thought that if I was named in any bcc header, I would at least see some evidence of that among the headers that I finally receive. ---
**Author:** ![billy-jack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@billy-jack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billy-jack)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-legacy-email-addresses/958601/89 "2022-01-31T08:13:21Z")
I still have a yahoo address but I have rarely used it much. My main use of it was for the old Yahoo Groups. I have one e-mail address from the mid 90s that is completely unusable because of all the spam it receives. It has been my official contact address since the mid 1990s and is found on a great many computers worldwide. If you are not familiar with aliases, on many mail servers such as gmail and protonmail you can add a ‘+’ followed by a reasonable number of numeric and alphabetic characters and a few more before the ‘@’. At least one mail service uses a hyphen instead of a plus for this. If you want to have fun, send someone with a gmail address an e-mail with a long alias. For example, if their e-mail address is [foo@gmail.com](mailto:foo@gmail.com), send them an e-mail at [foo+3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208998628034825342117067982148086513282306647093844609550582231725359408128481117450284102701938521105559644622948954930381964428810975665933446128475@gmail.com](mailto:foo+3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208998628034825342117067982148086513282306647093844609550582231725359408128481117450284102701938521105559644622948954930381964428810975665933446128475@gmail.com). The requirement is that the complete e-mail address cannot exceed 255 characters. If I remember correctly, yahoo and hotmail do not allow aliases of this form. Also, the new ctemplar from Iceland which intends to become one of the most secure e-mail addresses in the world doesn’t use this kind of aliases. If I remember correctly, the maximum length of e-mail addresses they support is 64 characters, but you can send an e-mail to a ctemplar address with e-mail addresses of such as the example e-mail address above. I always try to use aliases when giving an address on a web site. Using a different alias each time makes it easier to filter the e-mail and if someone starts spamming one alias, it is easier to delete anything coming in to that e-mail address. Many web sites do not recognize aliases as valid – they don’t seem to like the ‘+’ in an e-mail address. ---
**Author:** ![billy-jack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@billy-jack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billy-jack)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-legacy-email-addresses/958601/90 "2022-01-31T08:18:34Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Remember the earlier gmail days when there was always a sidebar with ads based on words in your mail? I quickly discovered that setting up gmail as I did eliminated all that. I worthwhile trade-off, I thought. One thing that I do is use Thunderbird to read the e-mail and set up GPG keys to handle the e-mail. On the rare instance when someone sends me an encrypted e-mail to my gmail account, I can read it on Thunderbird but it is just hexadecimal nonsense to gmail. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-legacy-email-addresses/958601/91 "2022-01-31T08:29:18Z")
> [@billy-jack](#): > > One thing that I do is use Thunderbird to read the e-mail and set up GPG keys to handle the e-mail. Or you could use ProtonMail. It has end-to-end encryption, and all emails are kept strongly encrypted on their servers. Open source too, and basic accounts are free. ---
**Author:** ![billy-jack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@billy-jack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billy-jack)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-legacy-email-addresses/958601/92 "2022-01-31T08:41:59Z")
My primary e-mail has been on ProtonMail since March 2016. It is the best e-mail service I know of and my top recommendation when asked about it. I’ve been trying to convince my company to switch to it for all our e-mail. We have a small enough company that we could run it under a Visionary account. I’m already paying $16 per month and a Visionary would be $24 per month. (Both before a 20% discount for paying by the year.) ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-legacy-email-addresses/958601/93 "2022-01-31T12:44:58Z")
> [@billy-jack](#): > > I always try to use aliases when giving an address on a web site. Using a different alias each time makes it easier to filter the e-mail and if someone starts spamming one alias, it is easier to delete anything coming in to that e-mail address. Many web sites do not recognize aliases as valid – they don’t seem to like the ‘+’ in an e-mail address. If I were harvesting addresses (or selling them), then it would be trivial to automate removing _`+something`_ from any `@gmail.com` address I were harvesting/selling. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-legacy-email-addresses/958601/94 "2022-01-31T12:54:49Z")
> [@billy-jack](#): > > I always try to use aliases when giving an address on a web site. Using a different alias each time makes it easier to filter the e-mail and if someone starts spamming one alias, it is easier to delete anything coming in to that e-mail address. If you need a disposable email address to sign up for something and reply to their verification email, and you’re not going to need that email address again, then there are several disposable email sites. I usually use [TempMail](https://temp-mail.org/). ---
**Author:** ![TRC4941](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trc4941/32/6792_2.png) [@TRC4941](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TRC4941)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-legacy-email-addresses/958601/95 "2022-01-31T16:05:44Z")
What am I missing? What’s wrong with using these email addresses? Is there something out there I don’t know about and should be using instead? (Probably!) I use Yahoo and also the email address from my cable/internet provider. ---
**Author:** ![Steven\_Maven](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steven_maven/32/3272_2.png) [@Steven\_Maven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steven_Maven)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-legacy-email-addresses/958601/96 "2022-01-31T16:25:46Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > If you need a disposable email address to sign up for something and reply to their verification email, and you’re not going to need that email address again, then there are several disposable email sites. When I’m somewhere I don’t go often, and the wifi demands an email address for access, I give my Yahoo account, which is the only thing I use it for now. About once a year I go in and delete everything. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-legacy-email-addresses/958601/97 "2022-01-31T16:59:11Z")
I have a Protonmail account as well. Unfortunately I’ve built up such a history with Gmail that it’s hard to switch everything over. Not to mention with Gmail I got first initial last name @ gmail whereas with Protonmail I had to add a number, which is annoying to me. In fact I think I get some wrong emails (including one directed towards a doctor in Canada, and one directed towards a parent in the DC Metro area) because they likely have a number at the end of their first initial last name and they forget to mention it to people. ---
**Author:** ![billy-jack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@billy-jack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billy-jack)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-legacy-email-addresses/958601/98 "2022-01-31T17:06:50Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > If I were harvesting addresses (or selling them), then it would be trivial to automate removing _`+something`_ from any `@gmail.com` address I were harvesting/selling. Very true. It might be better to change the “+something” to “+something\_else” in case the recipient uses only aliases and automagically sends anything that is not an alias to a junk folder. In fact, I do something like that with one account. E-mails from old friends are sent to the inbox regardless of whether they used an alias. All other e-mail with no alias goes to a junk folder. ---
**Author:** ![billy-jack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@billy-jack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billy-jack)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-legacy-email-addresses/958601/99 "2022-01-31T17:13:26Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > If you need a disposable email address to sign up for something and reply to their verification email, and you’re not going to need that email address again, then there are several disposable email sites. That’s a good idea. When looking for a Medicare Supplement Plan, I gave the address on various insurance company web sites using an alias on my ProtonMail account. For those that wouldn’t accept addresses, I used my Ctemplar account. I also control the e-mail for four domains. There have been times when I needed to post an address on line and I set up an address for just that purpose and then deleted it when done. When doing that, I used the date, e.g. [31-Jan-2022@example.com](mailto:31-Jan-2022@example.com). ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-legacy-email-addresses/958601/100 "2022-01-31T17:28:39Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > with Protonmail I had to add a number Perhaps you have a fairly common name and the email address was already taken. You certainly don’t have to add a number in general. You can use anything you like, with dots or underscores to separate different parts, if you want them. > **[Types of email addresses and aliases | Proton](https://proton.me/support/addresses-and-aliases)** > > Learn more about Proton Mail addresses, including free personal addresses, aliases, and custom addresses with your own domain. > Free personal address: the personal email you signed up with (for example, [alice.user@protonmail.com](mailto:alice.user@protonmail.com), or its short form, [alice.user@pm.me](mailto:alice.user@pm.me)). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-legacy-email-addresses/958601.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-use-of-legacy-email-addresses/958601.md?page=6)