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How to organize, protect and streamline your inbox with an email alias

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How to organize, protect and streamline your inbox with an email alias

Almost everything you do online asks for your email. If you have been using the same one for a while, chances are hundreds or even thousands of services have it. They send promotional messages, social media alerts, newsletters and more, turning your inbox into complete chaos. You can tame this madness using an email alias.

An email alias helps declutter your inbox by organizing emails based on their purpose. For example, you can create specific aliases for shopping, newsletters or work and set up filters to sort these messages into separate folders automatically. 

Aliases also help manage spam. If an alias starts receiving too many unwanted messages, you can disable it without affecting your main email.

Let’s dive into how to create an email alias on different platforms, including Gmail, Outlook and iCloud. 

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A person setting up an alias email (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

How to create an alias using Gmail

Gmail doesn’t allow you to create a completely separate alias, but it offers workarounds using “+ addressing” or by adding dots to your existing email address. However, these methods don’t prevent an unscrupulous sender from seeing your primary address, so exercise caution when using them with untrusted correspondents. Follow the steps below to get started.

Option 1: Create an alias using the ‘plus (+) trick’

Use your existing Gmail address and add a “+” followed by any keyword before “@gmail.com.”

Example: If your email is yourname@gmail.com, you can use:

  • yourname+work@gmail.com
  • yourname+newsletters@gmail.com
  • yourname+shopping@gmail.com

No additional setup is needed, just start using this alias when signing up for services or sharing your email.

Option 2: Create an alias using the ‘dot (.) trick’

Gmail ignores dots (.) in email addresses, so you can create variations of your email:

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Example: If your email is yourname@gmail.com, you can use:

  • your.name@gmail.com
  • y.o.u.r.n.a.m.e@gmail.com
  • yo.urn.ame@gmail.com

All variations will deliver emails to your main inbox automatically.

email organize 2

Setting up an alias on Gmail (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

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How to create an alias in Outlook.com

Outlook.com allows you to create additional email addresses (aliases) that are linked to your primary account. Emails sent to an alias will arrive in your primary inbox, and you can send messages using the alias as well.

Example:

If your primary email is johnsmith@outlook.com, you can create an alias like john.smith123@outlook.com. Emails sent to john.smith123@outlook.com will still go to johnsmith@outlook.com, but you can choose to send emails using either address.

Steps to create an alias:

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  • Sign in to your Outlook.com account
  • Click the gear icon in the upper-right corner to open Settings
  • Scroll down and select View all Outlook settings
  • Navigate to Mail
  • Then click Sync email
  • Click Manage or choose a primary alias under Account alias
  • Select Add email and follow the prompts to create your new alias
  • Choose whether to create a new Outlook.com email as an alias or use an existing email (non-Outlook) as an alias
  • Click Add alias to confirm

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Once added, you can send emails using your alias by selecting it in the From field when composing a new message.

Important limitations to note:

  • You can add up to 10 aliases in total
  • There’s a limit of 10 new aliases that can be created in one year
  • You can only add two aliases per week
  • Existing Hotmail, Live, Outlook.com and MSN addresses can’t be added as aliases
  • Aliases can only contain letters, numbers, dots (.), underscores (_) or hyphens (-)
  • It’s no longer possible to create new aliases with @hotmail, @live.com or @msn.com domains
email organizer 3

Setting up an alias using Outlook.com (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

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How to create an alias using your Apple ID

Apple allows you to create up to three email aliases through iCloud. These aliases can be used for specific purposes, helping you manage your inbox effectively. Here’s how to create one:

  • Go to icloud.com/mail and sign in to your Apple Account if necessary
  • Click the gear icon at the top of the Mailboxes list, then choose Settings
  • Click Account, then click Add Alias
  • Provide the requested information: Alias address – Enter the text to create your alias (e.g., alias@icloud.com). The alias must contain between three and 20 characters; Label – Assign a label for the alias. Aliases are listed alphabetically by their labels; Full Name – Enter the name that will appear in the From field of emails you send using this alias
  • Click Create to finalize the alias
  • Once created, any email sent to this alias will be forwarded to your primary iCloud email address. For example, if your primary email is yourname@icloud.com and you create an alias shopping@icloud.com, any emails sent to shopping@icloud.com will appear in your yourname@icloud.com inbox. This allows you to use different addresses for different purposes while keeping everything in one place

It’s important to note that you can still create up to three email aliases through iCloud. Remember that while these aliases provide some flexibility, they do not create separate Apple IDs or completely hide your primary iCloud email address.

email organizer 4

Setting up an alias using Apple ID (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

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Understanding email aliases

While many email providers offer basic alias functionality, most have significant limitations. Gmail’s “+” addressing and dot tricks, Outlook’s linked aliases and Apple’s iCloud aliases all provide some flexibility, but they often fall short of true privacy protection.

For those of you seeking comprehensive email privacy and robust alias management, my No. 1 pick for private and secure email platforms contains no ads, no tracking and powerful privacy features like password-protected email and unlimited disposable email addresses. See my review of the best secure and private email services here.

How to keep scammers out of your inbox

Protecting your inbox from scammers requires a combination of smart practices and proactive tools. Using email aliases is an effective first step. By creating specific aliases for different activities, such as shopping, subscriptions or work, you can track where spam is coming from and deactivate problematic aliases as needed. Below are some other steps to take.

1. Avoid sharing your primary email address publicly on forums, social media or other platforms to minimize exposure. Most email providers offer robust spam filters, so ensure they are enabled and customize them as needed

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2. Invest in personal data removal services. While no service promises to remove all your data from the internet, having a removal service is great if you want to constantly monitor and automate the process of removing your information from hundreds of sites continuously over a longer period of time. Check out my top picks for data removal services here.

3. Enable two-factor authentication on all your email accounts to add an extra layer of security.

4. Be cautious of suspicious links and attachments. Never click on links or download attachments from unknown senders, as these could be phishing attempts.

5. Use strong antivirus software to protect against potential malware that might come through spam emails. The best way to safeguard yourself from malicious links that install malware, potentially accessing your private information, is to have antivirus software installed on all your devices. This protection can also alert you to phishing emails and ransomware scams, keeping your personal information and digital assets safe. Get my picks for the best 2025 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices.

6. Regularly update your email password and make it strong and unique, avoiding common words or easily guessable combinations. Consider using a password manager to generate and store complex passwords.

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These steps will provide a more comprehensive approach to protecting your inbox from scammers and reducing unwanted emails.

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Kurt’s key takeaway

Taking charge of your inbox doesn’t have to be overwhelming. By implementing the tips and tools mentioned above, you’ll create a more secure, efficient and manageable email experience. Whether you’re battling spam or organizing your digital life, email aliases and secure services are great things to put into place.

Which email platform do you use most often, and how do you organize your messages there? Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/Contact.

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For more of my tech tips and security alerts, subscribe to my free CyberGuy Report Newsletter by heading to Cyberguy.com/Newsletter.

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ASUS is making a ‘Fragrance Mouse,’ and it’s coming to the US

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ASUS is making a ‘Fragrance Mouse,’ and it’s coming to the US

If you were paying attention to CES this year, you may have come across the Asus Aidol 14 Air Fragrance Edition’s curious gimmick: a magnetically-attached oil diffuser in the lid that emits the aroma of essential oils once the laptop heats up. Asus has now announced a “Fragrance Mouse” to go with it; and it’s coming to the US “around late April, early May,” company spokesperson Anthony Spence told The Verge in an email.

The Fragrance Mouse has a light-duty mousing layout of two buttons and a scroll wheel. Its trick is on the underside, where a small compartment holds a refillable vial you can load with essential oils of your choosing. It’s an otherwise standard affair — the mouse connects wirelessly over Bluetooth or a 2.4GHz wireless USB dongle, offers adjustable DPI (1200dpi, 1600dpi, and 2400dpi), and is powered by a single AA battery. Asus says it’s “available in distinctive Iridescent White or Rose Clay finishes.”

You may not be able to get a complete stinky laptop and mouse set, since the Adol 14 Air Fragrance Edition has only been released in China since being introduced in July 2024, as ArsTechnica notes. Spence was unable to confirm pricing details for the Fragrance Mouse in his email to The Verge.

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Fox News AI Newsletter: Harrison Ford addresses AI fears

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Fox News AI Newsletter: Harrison Ford addresses AI fears

Welcome to Fox News’ Artificial Intelligence newsletter with the latest AI technology advancements.

IN TODAY’S NEWSLETTER:

– Harrison Ford shuts down AI fears, dismisses technology’s power to ‘steal my soul’

– ChatGPT will now combat bias with new measures put forth by OpenAI

– Apple’s entire AI roadmap has been ‘underwhelming,’ expert says

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BRAVE NEW WORLD: Harrison Ford isn’t impressed by or afraid of artificial intelligence. In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, the “Captain America: Brave New World” star was asked if he was planning on securing control of his likeness from studios, and he brushed off the concern.

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Harrison Ford in 2020. (Amy Sussman/Getty Images)

MAJOR OVERHAUL: OpenAI has announced a set of new measures to combat bias within its suite of products, including ChatGPT.

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In this photo illustration, the OpenAI logo is seen displayed on a mobile phone screen with ChatGPT logo in the background. (Idrees Abbas/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

HIRING UP: Chipotle Mexican Grill is seeking to hire more workers ahead of “burrito season” – and it is embracing artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help streamline the process.

‘UNDERWHELMING’ APPLE: Apple’s foray into AI with Apple Intelligence has been “underwhelming” so far, but the company has the user base to continue to expand features, Futurum Group CEO Daniel Newman told FOX Business Network’s Stuart Varney.

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Elon Musk’s first month of destroying America will cost us decades

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Elon Musk’s first month of destroying America will cost us decades

Let’s pause and look at what the Elon Musk administration has done so far.

There’s been a lot of panic about the immediate but somewhat abstract constitutional crisis as Elon Musk’s misleadingly-named Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) rips the government apart. And as much fun as we all are having watching Congress render itself irrelevant and wondering whether the courts even matter, there’s a concrete nightmare looming. Mass unemployment, the defunding of crucial social programs, and just plain incompetence mean that America, as we know it, is already in for hard times.

The degree to which we have failed not merely ourselves but also our children and grandchildren is breathtaking

The scale of destruction in the past four weeks starts at the Soviet devotion to Lysenkoist biological theories, and at maximum, is the American version of Mao’s Cultural Revolution: a disastrous triumph of ideological purity over basic reality. I am not sure it has occurred to the majority of people that we are about to make a Great Leap Forward and destroy our prosperous, relatively peaceful society.

Musk has, in the short term, set us up for a shock to the economy from both unemployment and frozen government grants. This will be felt more or less immediately.

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But the long-term costs will be measured in decades. The degree to which we have failed not merely ourselves but also our children and grandchildren is breathtaking. Musk projects — such as undercutting practical preparations for possible disasters and dismantling an educational and scientific system so good that our actual enemies send their children to us for college — combine with disastrous Trump policies like mass deportation to undermine American society. And by alienating our longtime allies and cozying up to Russia, we set ourselves up to be a pariah state.

Let’s start with the federal workers. How many federal workers has Elon Musk fired? As of Valentine’s Day, Reuters figured 10,000. That number is almost certainly higher now. Many of the “probationary” employees he targeted were, in fact, quite senior — people who had just gotten promoted or who had been working for government contractors and then transitioned to working for the government itself. Often, these people were military veterans. Another 75,000 have taken a buyout from the Musk regime.

Kansas City, Missouri, for instance, doesn’t have enough jobs to absorb all its ex-federal workers

Among those fired: hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration employees, including air traffic controllers that keep flying safe. Over 1,000 people from the Department of Veterans Affairs, which provides healthcare to vets. On top of these specifics lies the basic fact that unemployed people have less money to spend in the rest of the economy. The pain might be most visible in reputationally liberal areas like the District of Columbia, Virginia, and Maryland. But it’s widespread — Kansas City, Missouri, for instance, doesn’t have enough jobs to absorb all its ex-federal workers. There are laid-off workers in Illinois, Oklahoma, Iowa, and Florida — in fact, all over the US.

It gets worse, because the recent pause in federal spending — driven first by an executive order from President Donald Trump and now by the chaos of DOGE — threatens the stability of many, many more people. Take, for instance, farmers and ranchers. They’re Trump voters, mostly, but this may push many of them into bankruptcy, since they depended on government programs to pay for farm upgrades they already made. The dismantling of the US Agency for International Development, or USAID, means that an agricultural buyer who dropped $2 billion into the sector is now gone. Rural areas broadly rely on federal funding, of course.

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It gets worse. Acts of aggression toward our trading partners mean that Canadians are starting to avoid US products. The EU is considering an import block on soybeans. That’s fewer places for farmers and ranchers to sell their products. America might not give a good goddamn about science or scientists, but cutting their funds also hits hospitals, which guarantees worse patient care.

Did you think I was done? I haven’t even gotten to the existential disasters. The Department of Agriculture has fired, it says accidentally, a number of people working on bird flu. (The agency is now attempting to rehire those workers.) Because the Musk regime froze all communications, there was no word from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on bird flu for weeks.

There’s no considered plan, just careless mass destruction — and Musk’s desire to control everything, whatever the risks

There are other things to fear. DOGE reportedly fired a bunch of nuclear workers before realizing that they were, in fact, quite necessary, and then struggled to rehire them. Oops! Good thing that’s only nuclear weapons. Nothing to worry about, I’m sure.

DOGE isn’t yet inside the CDC, where all the dangerous microbes are kept, but they’re aiming at it. Also, the CDC has access to all electronic healthcare records — so if, let’s say, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. decides he wants to ship everyone on psych meds to a work farm, a thing he has proposed, he can do that.

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The Trump administration, obviously, would have done some of this damage without Musk — he wasn’t leading the initial federal spending freeze or bringing in witless cronies, like RFK, Brendan Carr, and Kash Patel, with their own idiotic agendas. But DOGE has targeted a shocking sweep of basic government services with an unprecedented level of slash-and-burn nihilism. There’s no considered plan, just careless mass destruction — and Musk’s desire to control everything, whatever the risks.

DOGE is said to be seeking access to detailed financial records about every American taxpayer. Musk also wants access to Notify.gov, which contains everyone’s phone numbers, along with details such as whether they receive Medicaid. A Social Security chief resigned rather than let Musk into those systems. He reportedly has access to bank account numbers, Social Security numbers, and other personal details as part of the “God mode” access granted to DOGE. So far, this access has only been confirmed at USAID — but it’s not difficult to imagine that it’s been granted elsewhere, too. Oh, DOGE is apparently now inside CISA, indiscriminately hacking away at staff. No way that can possibly expose sensitive information to the US’s adversaries, of which there seem to be an increasing number lately.

At no previous point in my lifetime has a sitting president had to appear on television and tell the public that he is not being manipulated by a scheming vizier

How organized is DOGE? Well, they’re struggling to keep straight whether a contract is worth $8 million or $8 billion. This isn’t an operation targeting government waste. It’s about destroying anyone and anything that might be targeted toward having a functioning society — effete goals like feeding the hungry, stopping climate change, and caring for the sick. DOGE relies on operatives’ elite mastery of the Ctrl + F shortcut and their fierce commitment to anti-“woke” Silicon Valley supremacy. Who needs government expertise when you’ve got ideological conviction, right? Destroying bourgeois experts has never led to bad results!

The military was one of the last DOGE holdouts, but lists have already been submitted for layoffs there — supplemented by plans from TV personality and drunkard Pete Hegseth, who is for some reason the defense secretary, to fire generals and other senior staff, possibly as soon as this week.

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You may, at this point, be wondering, “What about Donald Trump?” It is perhaps worth noting that at no previous point in my lifetime has a sitting president had to appear on television and tell the public that he is not being manipulated by a scheming vizier. Not even George W. Bush had to do that, and plenty of people were suspicious of Dick Cheney.

Anyway, Trump shares many of Musk’s goals and has spent his free time dismantling the Pax Americana while sanctioning overseas concentration camps for refugees and dubbing himself a king. If Trump decides to try wresting back control of domestic politics from Musk, the destruction will continue — albeit perhaps with fewer people named “Big Balls.”

The Purge is being declared, but only for Trump supporters

Of course, if Musk and Trump turn on each other, that could wreak its own havoc. Sure, Musk has control of all the payments systems, everyone’s personal data, and a bunch of other sensitive stuff, but Trump also has, you know, an army.

Beside atrocities like blocking AIDS relief and the Panamanian jungle concentration camps, attacks on the rule of law might seem a little dry. Who cares that the disgraced mayor of New York may skate on corruption charges in an open quid pro quo arrangement? But let me make it practical: the Purge is being declared, but only for Trump supporters. Any illegal or violent activity they engage in will be excused, especially if it targets Trump or Musk’s supposed enemies. Pardoning January 6th rioters was just the start.

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As all this happens, the putative opposition party is still watching SNL, voting to confirm picks for the Trump / Musk regime, and tweeting weird shit about inflation. Aside from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — who is presently being threatened by Trump’s border czar for informing people of their rights — there has barely been pushback. New York Governor Kathy Hochul, perhaps the most lukewarm Democrat in existence, has nevertheless managed to make one of the strongest showings in the party by slamming the “king” comments. Certainly, there’s resistance from some Americans. People have been annoying their elected officials and protesting fairly continuously.

But many more people are simply tuning out — trying to pretend this isn’t happening. Well, it’s a matter of time before all this comes for them: the potential recession; the impoverished dystopia; the sicker, worse America.

Put it all together. We are in the process of being rendered unemployed, sick, helpless, and fearful of a law that works nakedly in the interest of Musk’s power. I still believe it is possible to stop what is in motion, but the window is closing. It has only been a month. Think of what a year will bring — and what we will lose.

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