Guild Wars 2

Most people do not know of this feature that exists with quite a few implementations of the standard e-mail system. It’s called Subaddressing/tagging, which vaguely allows the user to customize their everyday email address to almost brand new without creating another account.

How does this work?
Let us use example@gmail.com and formulate a new one for Facebook, Twitter, and Guild Wars 2:

• example+facebook@gmail.com
• example+twitter@gmail.com
• example+guildwars@gmail.com
• example+whateveriwanttoputhere@gmail.com
• example-yahoovariant@yahoo.com

Most e-mail variants using qmail utilize the hyphen (-), versus the plus (+) sign, but provide the same functionality.

All of those emails will be sent to example@gmail.com, but it also provides another layer of security to an extent. Sure, all anyone has to do is obtain that string of text and they have your username. But its effective.

What e-mail services provide this feature, and what character do they use?

• G-Mail – plus sign (+)
• Yahoo! Mail – hyphen sign (-)
• iCloud – plus sign (+)

Oy, I think I’m too dumb to understand this.

So are you saying my existing account, example@gmail.com … if I go to my GW2 user account and type in example+guildwars2@gmail.com .. any mail sent to that will go to my example@gmail.com?

So that when I receive email with the guildwars2 tag added to it, I know where it’s coming from to track it? Or this is supposed to stop hackers .. but how?

Sorry, I want to understand this, but I’m afraid it’s a bit over my head .. anyone simplify it for me?

Jayne.9251:

Oy, I think I’m too dumb to understand this.

So are you saying my existing account, example@gmail.com … if I go to my GW2 user account and type in example+guildwars2@gmail.com .. any mail sent to that will go to my example@gmail.com?

So that when I receive email with the guildwars2 tag added to it, I know where it’s coming from to track it? Or this is supposed to stop hackers .. but how?

Sorry, I want to understand this, but I’m afraid it’s a bit over my head .. anyone simplify it for me?

The point is that if you use say “guildwars+example@gmail.com” in you guild wars account it is a little bit more safe, because if you just used “example@gmail.com” on a forum that got hacked, they might have your email adress, and your password, but they do not have the “guildwars” part which is needed to log in to the game.

At least this is how I understood it.

Tested, and doesn’t work with @yahoo.co.uk, both hyphen and plus.

Thanks thebigredone … I get it now.

When you register – for example – with Guild Wars 2 with “mail+gw2@example.com” and with Google with “mail+goog@example.com” and Google gets hacked it is way harder for the hackers to automate getting into your account, because they can’t simply try “mail@example.com” with every service and website they know of.

A few things to keep in mind, though:

• Some sites don’t accept email addresses containing ‘+’ or similar characters, even though they are valid.
• Others seemingly accept them but truncate or filter the ‘+’ out (sometimes without telling you), so your “mail+goog@example.com” becomes “mailgoog@example.com”, which then leaves you wondering why you just can’t login with the email you just registered with. (Worst case: “mailgoog@example.com” exists, too, and now some stranger has the capability to take over your new account.)
• Don’t just add the site name to your address if you’re paranoid, because “email+guildwars2.com@gmail.com” is not that much harder to guess or to automate against on a large scale for at least a variety of popular sites.

Could the op re-explain what he means?
Like do you use the subaddress to log in gw2 or…?
Like how does this work?
Steps on doing this?

It’s been years since I used gmail but don’t recall there being a setting that you had to enable to utilize this. A quick way to test it, say your email is me@gmail.com, send an email to gw2+me@gmail.com and if you get the email it’s working. Just go into your GuildWars 2 account and change your email to gw2+me@gmail.com and you’re good to go (just remember to use gw2+me@gmail.com to login to the game).

I meant me+gw2@gmail.com in above post,

This is lovely but… HOW do I change the email address associated with GW2?

The only thing I can find in account options to change is my password.

ayoryor.4961:

Could the op re-explain what he means?
Like do you use the subaddress to log in gw2 or…?
Like how does this work?
Steps on doing this?

If you want a more verbose explanation, try this page: http://www.toolnext.com/2008/04/gmail-how-to-use-plus-sign-for.html

And an even more verbose explanation here:
http://css.its.psu.edu/news/nlsp05/emailplus.html

Its easy to understand once you get past the lengthy explanation.

Here’s a simple example:

username+keyword@email.com

Which would look like this if my email was “dandruff@gmail.com”:

dandruff+arenanet@gmail.com

Or

dandruff-arenanet@yahoo.com

Because Yahoo uses a (-) instead of (+).

Hope this helps.

Wouldn’t the alternative be stored in the forums database as well though?

Bluestone.7106:

This is lovely but… HOW do I change the email address associated with GW2?

The only thing I can find in account options to change is my password.

This! I didnt know about this feature and is great, but I cant change my password

Nice.

Is there a way to change your email?

Nice.

Is there a way to change your email?

Lambent, the option to change the e-mail address was removed a while ago to prevent intruders from changing the address on phished GW2 accounts.

Currently, the only way to change your e-mail address is via support ticket. They will ask you for game key, purchase details (like date and invoice number or purchase order number for digital purchase, etc), so make sure you have all your data handy.