2 Ways to Create Mail Aliases to Help Manage your Email

0:01
In this video, we’re going to take a look at email aliases, we’re going to look at how we create them, as well as why we may want to create an email alias. As an example, when you sign up for a newsletter, you may want to use an email alias. Let’s see why. We’re going to look at this on my Mac. But you can really do this on the Mac, iPad and iPhone. Let’s go over to my Mac.

0:25
Let’s first take a look at what an email alias is. When you create an email address, such as with iCloud or even Gmail, when you create that email address, it’s a primary email address, I’m going to go to my mail here, when I look at my mail here, we can see that I have note Boom productions@gmail.com. This is my primary email address. When I sign up for a newsletter, I use this primary email address. And then when I get that newsletter, it comes into my inbox here, what with an alias, what we can do is we can give that newsletter a different email address, it’ll still go into your inbox, because it’s still going to go to your primary email address. But as far as the sender is concerned, they are sending it to an alternative email address. So then what you’re able to do is create rules, you could have a secondary or an alternative email address, go into a separate mailbox as an example. So how do we create these alternatives are secondary email addresses these email aliases? Well, there are basically two different ways to do it. We’re going to look at both of these ways. The easiest way is to just add a plus, after your email address as an example, I did this earlier, let’s go over to this email here. If we look at this email, you’re gonna see it says no boom productions plus D t@icloud.com. This is an email alias the plus d t is the alias part of it. So it’s still going to my primary email address, no Boom productions@icloud.com. But what I can do is I can create a rule that says if it has the plus d t, go to a different inbox as an example. So how do we create this secondary email address? It’s really simple. Let’s go over to Safari here, I’m looking at my site here, I want to sign up with an email address here. Now normally, what you would do is you would use your primary email address, so I’m just going to go nope, boom

2:38
productions@icloud.com. That’s my primary email address. But now let’s just say I wanted to use an alias. That way, what I’m able to do is create a rule for any emails that go to this new alias that I’m going to create and move it into a separate email box. And if I no longer want to receive emails from this specific service, what I could do is create a rule to move it to the trash, I will never see that email. All we have to do is just go right before the Add symbol. And then we type in a plus.

3:15
And we type in what the alias is going to be. That’s basically all we have to do. So for this one, what I’m going to do is go dance tutorials, I could even go dance tutorials newsletter. So that is now the alias that I’m going to use. When I sign up that email address or that email is still going to go to

3:38
my iCloud account my note one productions at iCloud account. But what we’ll have here is the plus dance tutorials there. So now how do I use that? Well, essentially what I can do is I can create a rule like I mentioned earlier, and any email that includes note one productions plus dance tutorials@icloud.com, I could have it go into my trash, I could have it go into a folder.

4:03
So let’s go and see how this is done. We do not want to create a rule in the Mail app on the Mac. The reason why we don’t want to create a rule in here we can, but the reason why I don’t recommend it is those rules are only applied when your Mac is awake and on a network. What you really want to do is create that rule in icloud.com. So now what I’m going to do is go back over to Safari, I am in iCloud here. All I need to do to create a rule is just go over to mail here. And then we just go to our preferences here.

4:42
And what you’re going to see is rules. When I tap on rules here or click on rules, I can go and add a rule. Now all I need to do is just say when it is addressed to my alias, the one that I just created so I could go nope, boom production plus dt@icloud.com.

5:14
And now I can move any email that comes to this address to this new alias that I have created, I can move it into a separate folder. So all I have to do is just say, move to a folder, choose a folder, we’re going to go to feedback, let’s just say it’s for feedback. Now, anytime I get an email to that address, it’s going to show up in my inbox. So actually, it’s going to go to my inbox, and then the rule is going to be applied. And it’ll go into feedback. I can create another alias, let’s go ahead and add this.

5:47
So that’s one rule. I have another alias. Right, so we go over to is address two, I’m just going to paste and this one here is to Dan’s tutorials. So now that’s my second alias. Now what I can do is say when it is addressed to that email address, I want it to go to a different folder, I want it to go and mark it as read, I want to move it to the trash and mark it as red. So let’s go ahead and do that. And I click on Add. And now any email that has that alias plus dance tutorials, is going to go to the trash and mark it as red.

6:27
So that’s the easiest way to create an alias, all you have to do is just when you sign up, all you have to do is just put a plus there, and then type in your Alias Name, it will go to the original email address in the inbox and then you can create a rule. You can also bonus tip, you can do this with Gmail as well.

6:47
Now I mentioned that there was another way of creating an alias. The other way of creating an alias is to create a completely separate email address. It’s a little bit more work, but you do have more control because it’s completely separate email address, it is not going to be based off of your primary email address here. It’s going to be something completely different. So how do we do that? Well, we have to go back over to our iCloud here. And then what we do is we go over to accounts, we do have to be in our mail app here and iCloud and then I go over to my preferences.

7:23
And from here we go to Accounts. And when I click on accounts, what I can do is I can add an alias. And we can see I have two aliases here I have no Boom tutorials@icloud.com And I have dance tutorials@icloud.com We can see they have nothing to do with note Boom productions@icloud.com which is my primary email address. So if you were to send me an email at dance tutorials@icloud.com What it would do is it would send it to my alias here, and then it would bring it into my inbox at note Boom productions@icloud.com. So I’m not creating separate email addresses for these aliases. All they are different aliases, and they go to my original email account. So if you were to send me an email at no Boom tutorials@icloud.com, where would that go? It would go to no Boom productions@icloud.com Because that’s the primary email address. And then from there, what I’m able to do is create rules for that email address as well. Now, what’s the advantage of using this type of an alias? Why would I want to use this because it’s a completely separate email address. So you could have a completely separate identity as an example, maybe you want to have a professional email address and then a personal email address. But you want them to go to the same inbox, where you can do that with aliases.

8:49
So the advantage to this is you can create a completely separate identity. Another advantage is, if you no longer want to use that email alias, what you can do is click on and then you can go and delete that alias. any emails that go to that alias you will no longer receive because that email address is no longer going to be used. So it’s almost like it is a completely separate email address. But instead of going to a different inbox, what it does is it goes to your main inbox. So those are the advantages of this. The disadvantages are it’s a little bit more work to set up and you can only have three of them. So you can’t create unlimited aliases when you use in this type of an alias. So if you want to create a separate identity or you may want to delete that email address at a later date, you may want to go into your preferences and iCloud and set up a new alias. If you just want to create a rule for an email, maybe you’re signing up for a newsletter and you want it to go into a separate folder. Then what you may want to do is just use the other trick where you just have to type in a plus here after your email

10:00
I’ll address and then create a rule for. So those are the different types of email aliases that we can create, and why we may want to create an email alias. Basically, it just gives us further control or more control with our email. We can create rules based on different newsletters that we sign up for as an example. And then of course, we can also create a separate identity without having to create a completely separate email account.

10:28
We do this through icloud.com. And again, you can do this also with Gmail and other email accounts. I just wanted to show you how it works on Apple. This is not a Device Centric trick. You can do this on the iPad. You can do this on the iPhone and of course you can do it on the Mac. So that’s how we create email aliases and why we may want to create an email alias to help us control our email on the Mac, iPad and iPhone.