GMO Internet (Onamae.com) drove all of the net growth of .xyz in the year to June 2026, but renewed only 2.2% of the .xyz names that came up for renewal, against 22.0% for every other registrar. With 13 months of ICANN reports, a registrar comparison, why the 4.02 million one-year names added since July 2025 make late 2026 the real test, our method and a suggested citation.
Gmail Alias vs. an Alias on Your Own Domain: 4 Ways to Get Extra Addresses
Written by Sarah Johnson ·
A Gmail alias is a second address that delivers to the same inbox. A free Gmail account gives you two kinds automatically — dotted versions of your username and yourname+anything@gmail.com — and lets you send from other addresses you own with “Send mail as”; Google Workspace adds up to 30 real aliases per user at no extra cost. Every one of those lives inside a Google account. An alias on your own domain (for example shop@yourname.com, forwarded to Gmail or attached to Workspace) is the only kind you can take with you if you change provider or lose the account — and you can check whether your domain name is available in a few seconds.
Limits and rules checked on 28 October 2026 against Gmail Help, Google Workspace Admin Help (pages last updated 26 October 2026), Microsoft Learn, Apple Support, Cloudflare’s documentation and the email standards (RFC 5321, RFC 5233). Providers change these features; each row names its source.
One date to know before you set anything up: Google says that starting January 2027 Gmail will no longer support “Send as” for third-party email addresses, and will also remove Gmailify and POP fetching (“Check mail from other accounts”). During the transition in late 2026 “Gmail may restrict new configurations”. Gmail addresses and Google Workspace aliases are not affected. Details are in the “Send mail as” section below.
The 4 kinds of email alias, compared
Most guides list the Gmail tricks. The question that matters for a business address is different: who controls the address, and what happens to it if you leave the provider?
| Kind of alias | Example | Can you send from it? | Cost | Limit | Survives a change of email provider? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Gmail dots | j.smith@gmail.com |
It is your normal address | Free | Every dotted variation of your username | No — Gmail-only behaviour |
| 2. Plus addressing | jsmith+shop@gmail.com |
Made for receiving; Outlook.com and Microsoft 365 don’t allow sending from it | Free | Unlimited tags | No — the address is still @gmail.com |
| 3. “Send mail as” another address | Reply as you@other-provider.com from Gmail |
Yes, after verification | Free | Up to 99 addresses | Third-party addresses lose support in January 2027 |
| 4. Alias on your own domain | hello@yourname.com |
Yes with Workspace, Microsoft 365, iCloud+ or similar; receive-only with plain forwarding | The domain (forwarding is included with it at Register.Domains) | Set by the provider: 30 per Workspace user, about 300 per Microsoft 365 mailbox, 5 free forwards per domain at Register.Domains | Yes — you own the domain and point it at the next provider |
The first three are features of one Google account. The fourth is a property you own: the address stays the same, and only the place it delivers to changes.
Gmail’s built-in aliases: dots and plus addressing
Dots don’t matter (on gmail.com only)
Google states that if your address is johnsmith@gmail.com, “you own all dotted versions of your address”: john.smith@gmail.com and j.o.h.n.s.m.i.t.h@gmail.com reach the same inbox, and nobody else can register a dotted copy of your username. The same help page adds an important exception: if you use Gmail through work, school or your own domain, “dots do change your address”. In Google Workspace, john.smith@ and johnsmith@ are two different addresses.
Plus addressing: yourname+anything@gmail.com
Gmail Help gives the example janedoe+school@gmail.com and janedoe+notes@gmail.com: both go to janedoe@gmail.com. Nothing needs to be set up. The use Google suggests is filtering: give +shopping to online stores and +news to newsletters, then create a filter that labels, archives or forwards each tag.
Plus addressing has a formal name, subaddressing, defined in RFC 5233, which notes that the encoding is “site and/or implementation specific”. The SMTP standard (RFC 5321, section 2.3.11) says the part before the @ “MUST be interpreted and assigned semantics only by the host specified in the domain part”. In plain terms: dots and plus signs work because your provider decided they should, and the behaviour does not follow you to another provider.
What dots and plus signs can’t do
- They don’t hide your real address. Anyone who removes the dots or the
+taghas your Gmail username. - They aren’t separate identities. Google itself notes it “can’t prevent people from accidentally or maliciously using a dotted version of your address” to sign you up for mailing lists.
- Sending from a plus address isn’t supported everywhere. Microsoft says plainly that on Outlook.com you “cannot” send or sign in with a
+sitenameaddress, and that Exchange Online users “cannot send emails from plus addresses”.
“Send mail as”: sending from another address in Gmail
“Send mail as” (Settings → See all settings → Accounts and Import) lets a Gmail account send from an address you already own elsewhere. According to Gmail Help:
- You can add up to 99 addresses.
- Gmail sends a confirmation link to the other address; you have to open it to prove you own it.
- For work, school or other non-Gmail addresses you enter that provider’s SMTP server, username and password, with SSL (port 465) or TLS (port 25 or 587).
- Recipients on Outlook may see “From yourname@gmail.com on behalf of…”, and out-of-office replies, filters with automatic replies or a full mailbox can reveal your original @gmail.com address.
What changes in January 2027
Google’s notice “Learn about changes to third-party email account support in Gmail” sets this timeline:
| When | What Google says happens |
|---|---|
| After Q1 2026 | “Check mail from other accounts” (POP fetching) no longer accepts new users; existing users keep it until January 2027 |
| Q3 2026 | “Send as” announcement; affected users get an in-product notification |
| Q3–Q4 2026 | Transition: third-party “Send as”, Gmailify and POP still work, “but Gmail may restrict new configurations” |
| January 2027 | “Gmail will fully remove ‘Send as’ for third-party accounts, Gmailify, and POP” |
Google says the change “only applies to third-party, non-Google email accounts”; other Gmail addresses and Google Workspace aliases keep working. Forwarding into Gmail is not affected either: Google confirms you can still have another provider auto-forward messages to your Gmail address.
What this means for an address on your own domain: the exceptions Google lists are Gmail addresses and Workspace aliases. An address on your domain that is only forwarded into a free Gmail account is not hosted by Google, so our reading is that it falls under the change: you will still receive its mail in Gmail, but replying “as” that address from Gmail on the web stops being an option. For a business, Google’s own suggestion is to “use Google Workspace for a custom domain”, or your provider’s app, or a desktop mail client with IMAP/SMTP.
Google Workspace aliases: up to 30 per user
In Google Workspace an alias is set up by the administrator and is a real address on your domain. Google’s Admin Help says:
- “You can add up to 30 email aliases for each user at no extra cost.” If you need more, you have to create another account.
- An alias is not an account: you can’t sign in with it, and two users can’t share one (for a shared inbox Google recommends delegation or a group).
- Groups can also have up to 30 aliases each, so
help@andsupport@can land in the same group. - If you own a second domain, you can add it as a user alias domain (up to 20, no extra cost per user): every user then sends and receives at both domains.
- Changes can take up to 24 hours. To send from an alias, the user adds it as a From address in Gmail — and that kind of “Send as” is not affected by the 2027 change.
- When an employee leaves, their old address can become an alias of a current user, so customer emails keep arriving.
If you already have the domain, you can add Google Workspace from Register.Domains and manage the domain, the DNS records and the mailboxes in the same account. Our guide to Google Workspace MX records lists the five DNS records Workspace needs.
Outlook, iCloud and other providers: alias limits side by side
| Provider | Aliases on the provider’s own domain | Plus addressing | Your own domain | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gmail (free) | Dots + “Send mail as” up to 99 addresses | Yes | Receive by forwarding; third-party “Send as” ends January 2027 | Gmail Help |
| Google Workspace | — | Not stated by Google | 30 aliases per user, 30 per group, up to 20 user alias domains | Workspace Admin Help, 26 Oct 2026 |
| Outlook.com | Aliases on the Microsoft account; you can send from them | Receive only | Not covered here | Microsoft Support (no numeric limit published) |
| Microsoft 365 | — | On by default, receive only | About 300 addresses per mailbox (400 on Exchange Online Plan 1/2) | Microsoft Learn, 19 Oct 2026 |
| iCloud+ | Hide My Email: random addresses that forward to you | Not covered here | Up to 5 domains, 10 addresses per domain | Apple Support, 30 Sep 2026 |
| Proton | 10 hide-my-email aliases on Free/Plus, unlimited on higher plans | Yes, unlimited | At least 10 additional addresses; catch-all on paid plans | Proton Support |
| Fastmail | — | Yes, automatic | Needs a non-Basic plan | Fastmail Help |
Microsoft does not publish a fixed number of aliases for a free Outlook.com account; figures you may see quoted come from community forums, not from Microsoft’s documentation.
An alias on your own domain: forwarding vs. a mailbox
There are two ways to use an address like hello@yourname.com, and they behave very differently.
Option A: forwarding into the inbox you already use
Forwarding creates the address and passes every message on to an existing inbox, such as your Gmail. At Register.Domains, every domain includes free email forwarding with up to 5 forwards per domain; it works while the domain uses Register.Domains’ nameservers, and you set it up under Forwarding → Email Forwarding → Add new. If you need more addresses, Cloudflare Email Routing allows 200 routing rules per domain.
Forwarding has two limits worth knowing:
- It only receives. To reply as
hello@yourname.comyou need something that can send for the domain. Until January 2027 many people use Gmail’s “Send mail as” for this; after that, plan on a mailbox (option B). Our step-by-step guide to a free email address with your own domain covers the forwarding setup. - Forwarded mail can fail SPF. Google’s forwarding guide says “forwarded messages often fail SPF authentication”, which is why it recommends that senders use DKIM. If some forwarded messages land in spam, mark them as “not spam” in Gmail: Google says this helps it learn.
Option B: aliases on a real mailbox
With Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, iCloud+ Custom Email Domain or Proton, the alias belongs to a mailbox that can both receive and send as your domain. You get the provider’s limits from the table above (30 aliases per Workspace user, about 300 addresses per Microsoft 365 mailbox, 10 addresses per domain on iCloud+).
What happens when you switch providers or lose the account
This is where the four kinds of alias stop looking alike.
| Situation | Gmail dots / plus | “Send mail as” in Gmail | Alias on your own domain |
|---|---|---|---|
| You move from Gmail to Outlook, iCloud or Proton | Lost: they are versions of the @gmail.com address | Lost: the setting lives in the Gmail account | Kept: recreate the alias at the new provider and point the domain’s mail records there |
| You lose access to the Google account | Lost with the account | Lost with the account | Kept: change where the domain forwards or delivers |
| Google changes a feature (as in January 2027) | Depends on Google | Third-party addresses lose support | You move the domain to a service that supports what you need |
| You change your @gmail.com address | The old one becomes an alternate (Google allows a new one every 12 months, 3 times in total) | Unchanged | Unchanged |
| An employee leaves | Not applicable | Not applicable | Turn their address into an alias of a colleague (Workspace) or redirect the forward |
The pattern is simple: an address on someone else’s domain belongs to that provider’s rules. An address on your domain only depends on who you point it to. That is also why it is worth keeping the domain itself safe: renew it on time and keep its contact email working (our domain expiration and renewal guide explains what happens if it lapses).
Which one should you use?
- Sorting newsletters and shop sign-ups: plus addressing on Gmail. Free, instant, nothing to set up.
- Sending occasionally from an address at another provider: “Send mail as” works today, but if it is a non-Google address it has an end date (January 2027). Use that provider’s app instead.
- A freelancer or side project that mainly receives: a domain with free forwarding into Gmail (up to 5 forwards at Register.Domains).
- A business that has to reply from the domain: a mailbox with aliases — Google Workspace (30 per user), Microsoft 365, iCloud+ or Proton.
- Anything you will print on a card, an invoice or a website: an address on your own domain. It is the only one on this list that survives a change of provider.
Frequently asked questions
What is the +1 Gmail trick?
It is plus addressing: adding + and any word after your username, such as yourname+1@gmail.com. Mail sent there arrives in your normal inbox, and you can filter it by the tag.
Can I create a free Gmail alias?
Yes. Dots and plus addresses are automatic and free, and “Send mail as” is free for addresses you already own. The closest thing to a second @gmail.com address on the same account is changing your Gmail address: Google lets some accounts do it once every 12 months (three times in total) and keeps the old address as an alternate that still receives mail.
How many aliases can I have in Gmail?
“Send mail as” accepts up to 99 addresses. Google Workspace allows 30 aliases per user and 30 per group. Plus tags have no stated limit.
What is the difference between an email alias and an email address?
An alias is an extra address that delivers into an existing mailbox; it has no password and you can’t sign in with it. Google Workspace describes it as “a forwarding email address that an admin adds to a user’s primary email address”.
Will “Send mail as” stop working for my Workspace aliases in 2027?
No. Google says “Gmail-to-Gmail aliases and Google Workspace ‘Send as’ functionality is not affected”. The change is for third-party, non-Google addresses.
Get an address that stays yours
Every alias trick above depends on a provider’s rules except one: an address on a domain you own. Search for your domain at Register.Domains — it includes free email forwarding (up to 5 forwards) — and when you need to send as your domain, add Google Workspace with up to 30 aliases per user.
