What is a plus email address and how do I use it?

What is a plus email address and how do I use it?

Plus email addressing, also known as sub-addressing, allows you to create variations of a normal email address that will still be delivered to your @usf.edu mailbox. Students, faculty, and staff can use plus email addressing.

Why use plus email addressing?

A plus email address can act as a label and can be useful for managing email and site registrations.

You may want to use a plus email address when creating an account on a website or entering your email address on a form so you can easily keep track of any messages sent from that system or create inbox rules for special processing of those messages.

Are there any limitations?

Plus email addressing is not supported by every system, so your mileage may vary when using a plus email address. Some websites/applications, whether on purpose or as a result of bad programming, are not able to handle the “+” symbol in the email address or may have length limitations.

Additionally, we have no records of plus addresses you have used previously. This may make it difficult to recover lost logins for websites if you used a plus address to sign up for that website. If you use plus addressing in this way, it may be a good idea to take note of what addresses you use for what sites.

How do I use it?

To use plus addressing, simply append a “+” sign and a desired descriptor after your NetID in your email address and before the “@” symbol (e.g. RockyBull+Facebook@usf.edu).