[email protected]: How can I make email sub-addresses with only letters or numbers and no special characters like plus?
I want a bulletproof way to give email sub-addresses, since some websites strip out special characters like + and .. I have an idea for how it could work, let's say my email is [email protected] and I have the following:
All emails sent to TheTwelveYearOld@ get blocked
I specify a suffix that would be used instead of +, perhaps "From"
I whitelist phrases that go after "From": TheTwelveYearOldFromDoorDash, TheTwelveYearOldFromGoogle, TheTwelveYearOldFromReddit
Are there any services that can do this? I'm thinking I should make my own domain for emails that way my email addresses aren't tied to any companies and I can easily switch.
Why use a catch all when you can configure postfix to use _ as a separator instead of +. and then you can configure dovecot to automatically classify the selector into directories!
The answer is yes. The receiver can do whatever they want with the "localpart" of the email address.
However you will need to find a provider that supports it. For available services you are probably looking at one of two options:
Get your own domain, you can then probably just filter to the To address however you want.
Use a email relay/masking service. This will allow you to generate "aliases" that forward to your regular email address.
If you want full control you can run your own email server. For example that is what I do. I generate addresses in the form of {description}-{signature}@me.example. So if they try to remove stuff the signature will fail and the mail will get rejected (well actually just heavily weighted as spam). I do this using Rspamd with a custom rule written in Lua. Full details of this setup are here: https://kevincox.ca/2022/07/07/signed-email-addresses/
I think what you’re looking for is called a “Catch-All” or wildcard email address. Basically it looks like this: *@yourdomain.tld, and you would set it up to forward to a real email address of your choosing.
These are typically managed either via your domain hosting provider, or possible through your email provider.
Be forewarned, this does open you up to getting more spam because everything is a valid email address.