Symbolic Subaddressing

Created by Alice Joynson-Ellis, Modified on Wed, 22 Apr at 6:28 PM by Curtis Hammock

Understanding Symbolic Subaddressing

Symbolic subaddressing (also known as "plus addressing" or "tagged addressing") is a powerful feature at Purelymail that allows you to create infinite, unique email aliases on the fly without needing to create new user mailboxes.

How It Works

When symbolic subaddressing is enabled, our servers look for common symbols (like +, -, or .) in the recipient's email address. The system ignores everything from the symbol to the "@" sign and routes the email to the primary user account.

Example:

If your email is user@domain.com, you can give out the following addresses:

user+shopping@domain.com
user+newsletters@domain.com
user.family@domain.com

All of these will be delivered directly to your user@domain.com inbox.

Why Use Subaddressing?

Advanced Filtering: Use Sieve scripts or webmail filters to automatically move emails sent to user+bank@domain.com into a specific "Finance" folder.
Identify Leaks & Spam: If you sign up for a service using user+companyname@domain.com and start receiving spam at that specific address, you’ll know exactly which service shared or leaked your data.
Instant Aliases: You don’t need to log into your admin panel to create a new address; just make one up whenever you need it!

Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Effortless organization via automation/Sieve.	You cannot use symbols (like dots or dashes) in your primary username.
Increased privacy and tracking of your data.	Some poorly designed websites may not recognize the `+` symbol as valid.
Helps identify the source of data breaches.	Can be difficult to remember which tag you used for which service.

Managing the Feature

Symbolic subaddressing is enabled by default for all custom domains.

How to Disable Subaddressing

If you prefer to have symbols in your permanent usernames (e.g., first.last@domain.com or info-team@domain.com), you must disable this feature:

Log in to the Purelymail Account Admin portal.
Navigate to Routing.
Locate the Symbolic Subaddressing toggle next to your domain and uncheck it.

Managed Domains: If you use a Purelymail-owned domain (like @purelymail.com), you cannot disable this feature. Usernames must remain alphanumeric.
Warning: If you disable subaddressing, any "tagged" addresses you’ve given out (like user+tag@) will stop working and emails sent to them will bounce.

Technical Notes

Dots (.): Unlike the + symbol, dots are simply ignored. Firstname.Lastname@ will route to FirstnameLastname@.
Logins: You can use these tagged addresses to log into the webmail and admin portal, but they will not work for IMAP/POP3 (your mail client). Use your primary address for those.
Order of Operations: Subaddressing happens early in our routing process, before Account Routing Rules and Sieve filters are applied.