Efficiency trick: Using one email for testing multiple accounts

Problem to Solve: How to create additional, unique logins without having to set up multiple fake email accounts. This can help developers and testers when needing to build & test using various accounts. Who has time to setup and manage multiple email accounts?

Use Gmail!

  1. Create a gmail account or use your existing one. (www.gmail.com)
  2. On the site in which you need to use a unique email to create a new account, enter: <YourGmailEmail  +characters@gmail.com> In the example, christine@gmail.com is my existing gmail account (not really) and +testing1 is what I add to make this unique. e.g. christine+testing1@gmail.comchristine+testing2@gmail.com, etc.

 

 

When you login to the system under test, use the unique gmail account you entered when you created the account.

When you go to gmail account (in this example it’s christine@gmail.com) you should see emails from the system (if any are sent). The “+characters” is ignored on the gmail side.

Note: If you forgot which accounts you set up on which systems, sounds like you have other problems. Try taking notes or using a password manager.

An Extra Trick

Note: This is also a tricky way to see what companies are sharing your email address.  You can concatenate a website name to your gmail account.

In this example, I am signing up for the site ILoveCandy.com (not real) using my gmail account christine@gmail.com (also not real).

 

If you receive emails from random companies that match a different website name, then it’s easy to find out from where they originated. So if I get an email from CandyForKids.com (not real) and it says “this email was sent to the following address: christine+ILoveCandy.com, then I know which company shared my info.

Thank you Google.

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