How many Email Addresses to Use

[Katsmeow]

I am going to finally get my email addresses straightened out and more secure. For almost 20 years, I have used my own domain name. I have a gmail account that I only use for a few websites and it fetches all of the mail for my own domain.

I want to end this and plan to go to several gmail addresses. (I don't feel I need the individual domain email any more. I started it years ago when you got your email from your ISP and if you switched ISPs you abruptly changed email. Now, I feel gmail will be around and you can download everything anyway). I do know that this long term email address of mine has been compromised in a number of the various compromises that have occurred over the years. I've changed passwords periodically of course.

Anyway, I have been doing research on this and generally see recommendations to have several different email addresses. The typical I have seen is:

1. Investment/banking accounts - Use an email address that is dedicated to those accounts and don't use that email address for anything else. I do plan to do this and will not forward that email to my main gmail account.

2. Primary email account - Use this for personal email and other important emails including emails such as credit cards, mortgage company, etc.

3. Email used for accounts that don't require a lot of security or where you think that the information is not very secure. Examples would be Facebook and forums like this.

4. Throwaway email. Use this when you need to put in an email address for something that you aren't going to routinely use. Think of a website where you need to sign up to get some benefit or information but don't plan to come back. Or, a forum you sign up for to deal with a specific issue (for example, a product specific forum) and don't plan to come back to.

All of that seems fine but on further reflection I struggle between 2 and 3 and wonder if I should add another email.

FWIW, I do have 3 Gmail addresses that I don't think have ever been compromised. One of them is the master Gmail account I have now. Everything basically is sent to it and everything is mailed from it. It would be convenient to keep it. I could easily make it my main email account except the email address is sort of long and might be prone to misspelling by others. On the other hand, I have over 150,000 emails sitting in that account and if get rid of it and make some other account the main account I would need to move those emails which would be tedious. The other alternative is I keep it as my mail email account for receiving/sending email but I use it for forums such as this but create a new primary email account.

Anyway here is the real problem area. My first thought was that I would use the primary email account for my personal emails, any merchants or anything financial (except investments or banking which will have their own separate email that will never mix with the other emails). Then I would put social media, forums, online accounts that are free, etc. in email number 3.

In other words, if they have my credit card or banking info they would go with my prior email. However, many compromises of email addresses, user logins and passwords have been of those kinds of sites. One of the compromises of my email address (years ago) was a compromise of Adobe for example. So I do wonder if I should have the primary account include all merchants and places I spend money or if I should instead do something like this

1. Investment/banking

2. Personal email, major financial and personal logins. Think credit cards, insurer, mortgage company, utility companies, etc.

3. Merchants who are more garden variety retail merchants that aren't really large ticket merchants. So, a clothing store, or Walmart, etc.

4. Social/forums/online logins that don't involve money.

5. Throw away email.

In some ways I like it better. On the other hand it isn't always easy to decide what is category 2 and what is category 3. Is Amazon category 2 -- we buy a lot there but it isn't like a mortgage either.

Any thoughts?

 

[Sunset]

I have my own domain(s).

I use a separate email address for many of my important email things, example brokerage1, brokerage2, bank1, bank2, bank3, bank4, etc...

Only recently have I become more strict about this so I do have some unimportant email sites mixed in with a standard email address and just got a slap in the face.

Marriot Bonvoy notified American Air, someone used a Marriot employee sign in to access my info along with thousands of others.
name, address, email, birthdate, license, passport #, etc, whatever they had from my staying at the hotels over the years and the member benefits.

So AA.com emails me to say they are being careful with my account. Great, except a hacker literally has enough info to fake being me.
WORSE - the email is used at a bank, so I think you can imagine, someone phones the bank, says they lost the email address (mine), and says here is the new one (theirs), and the name, DOB, address, etc is the same.... could convince a bank employee to change it all or reset the pwd to their email account

To make the mangagement of my email easy, I forward all the sub emails to a main email account.

Example my2PrettyBigBank@mydomain.com and myTinyBank@mydomain.com both forward to MyName@mydomain.com

Junk emails are contest347834@myotherdomain.com

The nice thing is, when I get an email to my2PrettyBigBank@mydomain.com from somewhere other than the bank. I know that email has been sold or stolen from the bank.

 

[OldShooter]

I have my own domain name email plus a gmail account. At one point I had a scheme to use them in different ways but that has not been executed very precisely. I am not smart or orgainized enough to manage a passel of them.

 

[gamboolman]

Same one forever.....ish.... since about 1980 or so....

 

[38Chevy454]

Three email accounts
1. Personal email
2. Junk email
3. Side business email

No need for previous working email accounts
4. Work 1
5. Work 2

 

[Katsmeow]

To make the mangagement of my email easy, I forward all the sub emails to a main email account.

I don't have as many emails as you but I have been sending my domain email to my gmail account for over 10 years. I fetch the email instead of forwarding but same process. And, I can reply as my domain from the gmail. But I have begun to find it tedious to deal with and think I will just go with various gmail accounts which are free.

I have been thinking and looking at my accounts since I posted and lean toward the following.

1. Investment accounts/bank -- The bank is less critical than the others so I may split it to another email. I will NOT be forwarding these emails to my master account. I did a lot of research which seem to indicate it is best to keep that email account as pristine as possible and never have it so much as touch your regular account. A lot of people recommend even accessing these accounts on a separate computer. I am still thinking about that.

2. Personal email and major accounts (not included in 1). Basically this wouldn't include most merchant emails.

3. The gazillion emails I get for just ordinary merchants/vendors that I do business with on the internet. I am still considering combining 2 and 3

4. Social media/forums/online sign ins for places I regularly go. So this forum fits in there, for example

5. Throw away account for all other places I have to use an email address.

 

[KenZ71]

Gmail allows trickery

One gmail account can be used like many.

The dots to left of @ are ignored.

I.fired.2020@gmail.com would deliver all mail to ifired2020@gmail.com. Likewise all mail sent to 1.fire.ed.20.20@gmail.com would be the same in gmail's eyes.

This can be useful for filters or multiple registrations at one site.

 

[geeky_grrl]

I have one gmail I use for virtually everything. I have it enrolled in Advanced protection so I have to use 2 factor to access it from unknown devices.

I have a throwaway that I use for a few weird corner cases (I've used a phone with only that account on it for some foreign travel and for some weird tech cases like rooting a phone where I didn't want to give that phone access to my main account).

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

One gmail account can be used like many.

The dots to left of @ are ignored.

I.fired.2020@gmail.com would deliver all mail to ifired2020@gmail.com. Likewise all mail sent to 1.fire.ed.20.20@gmail.com would be the same in gmail's eyes.

This can be useful for filters or multiple registrations at one site.

And even better: Gmail ignores everything after a + sign to the left of the @ sign. So I.fired.2020@gmail.com and Ifired2020+ERForumorg@gmail.com and I.fired.2020+contest123@gmail.com all go to the same place.

I use this as you suggest, with filters.

 

[Sunset]

Besides my normal concerns about using gmail for my $$$$$ accounts.

I'd be really worried about depending upon the tricks of "." or "+" for any important accounts as gmail could change their policy.

 

[Cat-tirement]

Twenty or so years ago I generally used three ISP based emails, one for friends and family, a second for places like banks, investments and companies/utilities where I paid bills, and the third was for online shopping and general spam magnet usage.

Some years ago, I had registered a personal domain with the family name, but didn't really make good use of it. More recently, in response to spam and security breaches, I went a little crazy (DW would say a lot crazy). I moved my friends and family address to the personal domain. Then I created a separate address on that domain for every high value account or login (banks, brokerages, utilities, insurance, etc.), and they all forward to a catch-all address on that domain. Then I created another personal domain that does not contain my name, and created separate addresses for low value accounts or logins, which also forward to a catch-all address.

I am well over 100 addresses with this approach now. The main advantage which drives me to go through this extra work: If an address is compromised in a breach, or even just misused by a company, I know who to blame (because the company name is part of my address for them), and I can easily revoke that individual address without affecting any others.

This is certainly not an approach for everyone, but it makes me feel more secure.

 

[davebarnes]

1. Own domain name.
2. One email account.
3. Deal with 2-3 junk emails a day.
For me, simplicity rules.

 

[Dash man]

DW and I share an email address for any joint accounts or places where we both want to be informed. I have three individual email addresses that had an intention of organization behind them once, a long long time ago.

 

[audreyh1]

1. We have our own domain name with various email addresses for various purposes.
2. We also have Apple email addresses.
3. I did eventually get a gmail account for very anonymous situations that I hardly ever use. This was more for dealing with hotel computers for printing tickets while traveling and with the almost universal acceptance of scanning barcodes on edevices this is never used anymore. But you never know...

 

[DayDreaming]

I have my own domain name,
1 email address for personal use, i.e. I give this to friends,
1 email address for business use - Amazon, banks, everything that is not a personal friend.


And 1 gmail account which I only have because you sort of need a gmail account for some Google services.

 

[easysurfer]

I have about 5 emails but of them only 2 are used on a regular basis. One primary for official stuff and day to day stuff. The other just for family. The remaining 3 are for certain specific things. On the primary, I don't mind getting spam emails (like when having to register an email to buy concert tickets ) as I have a good spam filter on my email reader. Occasionally, if I sign up for something that is totally spammy, I'd use a one-time type temporary email.

 

[sengsational]

I found that I couldn't keep a clean email address clean and a junk email address junk-only....they ended up getting a lot of overlap, and so the distinction became less useful, and more trouble than it was worth.

When asked for an email address nowadays, I almost universally give a spamgourmet address, which I have forwarded to my usual email address. Some sites don't allow "throw away emails", and from those I might walk away (why are they so desperately seeking an email address that the user can't cut-off?) But most allow them and the email (typically also the user name) goes into LastPass with a randomly generated password.

The default on spamgourmet is 10 deliveries, then the rest go to the bit bucket. I routinely re-up email addresses that I want to keep getting stuff from (also there is an "exclusive" feature to not have it limit the number forwarded).

This has allowed me to completely turn off spam filters, which were way more trouble than they were worth (blocking email loops, usually). The few true spam that I get nowadays are easy to spot.

 

[kcowan]

I have 5 email accounts but many of them have aliases:
1. ISP
2. Yahoo
3. Gmail
4. Outlook, live.com, live.ca
5. iCloud, me....

I also get email assigned by other cloud services.
I have been meaning to clean these up and will probably consolidate on the last three someday. During self-isolation would have been a perfect time...I can see using gmail for that.

Also thinking about IDs on groups.

 

[Bir48die]

Three email accounts
1. Personal email
2. Junk email
3. Side business email

No need for previous working email accounts
4. Work 1
5. Work 2

Same same

 

[TheRunningMan]

I use Fastmail.com which facilitates the use of multiple alias email addresses which I use for:
1). Vital financial accounts (Fidelity, Vanguard, etc.); this one is highly private and not out in the wild
2). Other Financial accounts (Credit union, credit cards, etc.)
3). Personal account for family & friends
4). Disposable account for use in e-commerce or general; dispose of/replace when spam becomes unbearable.

Cheers!

 

[Gotadimple]

More than three is a lot of bookkeeping. That said, I have 4, but only use 3.

Main email - general accounts with websites, or social media friends, or when setting up an account to buy something online.
Primary email - for finances (bank, broker), and personal friends, volunteer assignments. Anything that ends up here is important.
Special account - could be for any site I consider low security, any temporary volunteer job where I don't expect to continue correspondence.
Gmail - have it because I use their products, don't use their email.

Any one of these can be set up to accomodate email from all four so I don't have to check all four. But I prefer to, so I don't confuse how I reply.

- Rita

 

[W2R]

Same one forever.....ish.... since about 1980 or so....

Wow! That's 40 years!!!

I thought I had had mine for a long time. LOL I have had my main e-mail address for 24 years. I also have, but seldom if ever use two alternate e-mail addresses.

 

[Kwirk]

I use an alumni email address forwarded to my primary gmail address for accounts that I really care about. I also have a few junk email addresses forwarded to my primary gmail address.

Primary email addresses (Mindspring, Comcast, Verizon,...) used to come and go with changes in ISPs. Rerouting the alumni email allows me to quickly 'update' all sites if I get a new email address. That hasn't happened in recent years with the switch to gmail but I'm ready to quickly move on if gmail ever annoys me or has a serious security breach.

 

[Katsmeow]

Hmmm..I was actually able to get from Gmail an email address based upon my own name. It is my first name, middle initial, then last name...but with a twist. The first name is my nickname which is similar to but not my actual first name. Think something like Peggy for someone whose actual name is Margaret (this is not mine, just an example). I know a lot of people use their name for their main email account but some people feel it allows people to too easily identify you from the email address or to (more worrisome) guess your email address from your name.

If I used this I would use it only for actual personal friends or people who already know my real name (main accounts such as credit cards, mortgage company, insurance). My actual sensitive financial stuff will have a separate email.

Anyway I've read anything would appreciate some feedback on the following:

1. I know I am going to have at least one separate email for investment accounts and for my bank. I am undecided to whether to do one email for just those accounts that I use for nothing else.

Or should I get an email for each investment company and for each bank (far more tedious but could do)? I lean to just doing one.

2. But assuming I do one, does the bank belong in there at all?

The bank is important of course, but we keep relatively little in the bank at any one time and it is FDIC insured. So maybe I should treat the bank more like the mortgage company and just use it with my "regular" main email account that has my personal friends and other important places such as mortgage company, insurers, credit cards.

3. OK, lets assume I have one email for investment accounts (and maybe bank) and a second email for my personal friends/family, mortgage company, credit cards, insurance.

I then have an email for regular stuff (as in 2 above). I was going to then have a separate email for everyday merchants and then another for social media/forums (think Facebook and this forum). Given what sengsational said though I wonder if that is worth it?

Maybe I should just combine the everyday vendors/merchants with the social media/forums. I would, of course, have a junk email as well.

 

[Gulfbeach]

When I was working, I used four, on three domains.
One for personal email, one for work mail, one for financial matters, and one gmail for back up. The last because sometimes on long cruises,in Asia particularly, the ships email system would not complete either sending or receiving other addresses.
This worked for me because it insured all my email was presorted, saving time.