Dots or No-dots in your Gmail address: They Hardly Matter

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Most of the times while verbally telling your email address to someone else, you are more specific

about the dots or periods that your email id might possess.

To explain, let's suppose my email address is 

vishal.sharma@himbuds.com. If you email me on vishalsharma@himbuds.com, you will receive a bounce back to your email as there is no vishalsharma@himbuds.com.

Had there been one, he would have definitely received too many email which would have actually been intended for me.

This is the main reason why Google has worked out something different in its service, Gmail, as compared to most other email providers (including Yahoo).

Google, while launching Gmail, decided to altogether ignore any types of periods in the email addresses of its users.

Ya, You read it right.Period or no period, it hardly matters.

As per a post on the Google support forums:

Gmail doesn't recognize dots as characters within usernames, you can add or remove the dots from a

Gmail address without changing the actual destination address; they'll all go to your inbox, and only yours. In short:

vishalsharma@gmail.com = vi.sh.al.sh.ar.ma@gmail.com

vishalsharma@gmail.com = VISHALSHARMA@gmail.com

vishalsharma@gmail.com = vishal.sharma@gmail.com

All these addresses belong to the same person. You can see this if you try to sign in with your username, but adding or removing a dot from it. You'll still go to your account.

One thing worth noting is that, unlike Gmail, Google Apps does recognize dots in its username.

Email service providers

This is something some of you might have been knowing about earlier. While, most of you might not have been aware of this, having been using Gmail for years now. I'm not embarrassed in admitting that I too was unaware of this fact lest I came across a post talking about this on the google forum.

Unlike Google, most other email providers do not disclose the fact behind the usage of periods or dots in their respective services, but on undertaking some experimentation, I concluded:

Dots Do Matter: Google Apps, Microsoft Outlook, Yahoo Mail, Apple iCloud

Dots Don't Matter: Gmail, Facebook

Dots Not Allowed: Twitter

Well, that's all about dots or no-dots in your gmail ids. I hope you liked this informational piece. Please do not forget to share with your friends. Knowledge multiplies on being shared. Cheers.