It doesn’t really make sense.
This reflects a confusion I see all the time. I want to clear that up once and for all.
And, while I don’t know exactly what you want to accomplish, I can suggest a few ideas to perhaps mimic in some way the solution you are seeking.
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One address, two accounts?
An email address uniquely identifies your email account, so it’s not possible to have one account with more than one email address. Depending on the problem being solved, an additional account, or filters and rules in your email interface, can help organize and route email appropriately.
Your email address is the ID for your email account
On 99% of the email systems we deal with every day, your email address is your account ID. A different email address means a different account.
Email addresses and accounts are inseparable because most of the time, they’re really the same thing.
Let’s say you have an email address example@hotmail.com, and you don’t like it. You would rather have notanexample@hotmail.com. The answer is simple: you create a new account. There’s no relationship between old and new. You can’t change the email address of the account because the email address is the account. A new email address is a new account.
The email address is the account identifier and the account identifier is email address. You can’t change one without the other. Make a new one, you’ve made a new of the other as well.
One address, two accounts confusion
Let’s say you had one email address — say, notanexample@hotmail.com again — and somehow it had two accounts.
How would you sign in to one account or the other? The email address identifies the account, so there can be only one.
How would email get directed? The email address defines which inbox gets the message. Placing it in two inboxes would be very confusing, even if it were possible, and there’s nothing you can tell from just the email address which account it should be placed in, because the email address is the account identifier.
There are a couple of exceptions I can think of, but they are very rare and probably do not apply here.
Exception 1, kind of: separate ID and address
Some ISPs give you a separate login to access their network, which is your account ID, and then allow you to associate some number of email addresses from that ISP with that ID. I’ve only ever seen this with ISPs, and even then, it doesn’t appear to be very common.
I’m willing to bet this is not your situation, particularly if we’re talking about online services like Outlook.com, Gmail, and the like.
Regardless, this is not what you were asking about. This is multiple email addresses on a single account — not multiple accounts somehow associated with a single email address.
Exception 2, kind of: identifiers
Some email services allow you to add an identifier to your email address that makes it look like a different email address but still routes to the same account.
For example, I might have:
leo@somerandomservice.com
And when subscribing to a newsletter, I might use:
leo+askleo@somerandomservice.com
Both are the account “leo@somerandomservice.com”, and both are delivered to the same inbox.
Not all services provide this functionality; in fact, it remains fairly rare. Check with your email service provider to see if they do anything like this.
Once again, this is not what you were asking about. This is multiple (faux) email addresses on a single account — not multiple accounts somehow associated with a single email address.
Alternatives
I don’t know what specific problem you’re attempting to solve, but I’ll suggest two very common solutions to the kind of division you’re asking about:
- An additional account. Even though it would be creating an additional email address, creating an additional account is often the easiest solution to this kind of problem. Separate email accounts typically mean separate inboxes, but you can also use desktop email programs to download email from multiple accounts and process them however you like.
- Filter incoming mail. Most desktop email programs and web services allow you to filter or take action on email as it arrives. The solution that comes to mind is to pick some characteristic of incoming email and automatically route it to subfolders you’ve set up. Perhaps emails with the word “question” in the subject line would automatically get placed in the “Questions” folder, while email from certain people would get placed into some kind of “VIP” folder. There are unlimited possibilities here. In desktop email programs, look for “filters” or “rules”. Gmail includes filters that allow you to place labels on email based on criteria you specify, to the same effect.
Hopefully one of those suggestions will address your specific situation.
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I think it’s way simpler than that and it can be done without people noticing the difference ..
1 – If you are using Yahoo Mail you can create various ” Aliases ” on the same ID it’s basically exactly what you want you can have two email addresses both pointing to the same account .
and with a few filters you can manage to separate them ” not sure though if you can filter messages on a free Yahoo account .
2- If you are using Hotmail or Gmail you can simply create another account and set your first account to forward all mail to the other account and set the other account to filter messages from the first account into a specific folder which is a fairly simple process .
Is it possible to have several people using the same email address? The users of the same
email address live in different States. Check this out: {email address removed}. How can different people with different State addresses use the same email address?
Only if they all share the login credentials for that single account.
I have seen people using the “+tag” feature to help their spam filtering. Every month (or some other period), they change the current tag, and expire the old one. (Usually, there is some overlap, where both are valid. But, eventually, the old one is no longer valid.) If an incoming e-mail doesn’t have a valid tag, it’s filtered out.
When posting to public forums, they will add something at the bottom of the message like “add ‘+foo’ to my username to reply”.
This way, their “real” address doesn’t change, yet they still have a simple front-line filter against spammers, as they effectively get a new e-mail address each month, and the “naked” address which will be seem by spam trawlers won’t work in the first place.
The downside to this method is that the “+” is technically not RFC-compliant, and many sites don’t allow you to register such an address.
With a Gmail account any occurrence of a dot “.” is invisible to Gmail. leo@gmail.com, l.eo@gmail.com, l.e.o@gmail.com are all delivered to the same Gmail address. However the address used when the email is created is sent in the header so you can use it to filter things as they arrive.
He may be thinking about having two mailboxes, rather than two accounts. Lots of folks don’t know how to create multiple boxes, let alone filter the mail into them.
You can use same name in different locations if name is available.iamajerk@yahoo.com
iamajerk@gmail.com
iamajerk@hotmail.com
there are locations that offer e-mail services
Recently my PC was restored to factory specs remotely. During process something went wrong when trying to setup email address (gmail). I choose yahoo. Can I setup a gmail account under same browser Microsoft Edge or can I download Google Chrome and use my gmail account? I do not know much but I do know how to download browser. Thank you.
Browsers and email addresses are completely separate things. You can set up as many different email accounts as you like using the same browser.
GMX free email allows you to have up to ten completely different email addresses, all of which go to the same mail box. These can be filtered.
Free Yahoo allows you to set up to 500 “disposable” email addresses, plus you also have up to 100 filters. More if you pay a asubscription, I believe.
Many thanks for the comprehensive reply to my question. What I was looking for was say I have two independant email addresses for example
fred @ hotmailetc. & fred @ allin solutions.would it be possible for incoming emails to go to either or both addresses at the same time, even though I did not specify which one or, automatically transfer from fred @hotmailetc. to fred @ allin solutions?
Many thanks
TC
27-Aug-2010
I have a Windows XP PC and now a new laptop Windows 7. I use Outlook Express on windows XP but Incredimail on the laptop. Both with the same email address. Sometimes after I have opened the emails on one computer they don’t come up on the other. U also run Gmail with a separate account and it forwards the emails to the Outlook Express and Incredimail accounts keeping them on the Gmail account inbox.
I think my set-up corresponds to Exception 2.
We have three PCs generally, my Tower, my Netbook; and my lady-wife’s Laptop.
Some months back, I wanted to carry out experiments involving all three PCs, by taking my Netbook on the coach service to Edinburgh.
This is equipped with WiFi and Mains supplies at each pair of seats.
My intention was to use LogMeIn from the travelling Netbook, to connect alternately to the two PCs at home, left running etc.
Extending the test, I installed SKYPE on all three PCs as well.
To minimise confusion, I set those programs up on the Laptop, using my Lady-wife’s independent e-mail address.
For the Tower, I used my regular e-mail address.
For the Netbook, I set up an AKA address within my regular e-mail address, using the names of our two cats.
That made it easy to differentiate and help me keep track of what I was doing, on the coach.
For example, I used LogMeIn on the travelling Netbook, to log in on the Laptop, starting SKYPE on the Laptop, then on the travelling Netbook – followed by having a conversation with my lady-wife sitting comfortably at home.
Some of the other passengers were obviously bemused to both hear me talking to her, her replies; and the clear TV sound in the background.
I also remotely controlled the transfer of the latest data from our Met Station on to the Tower.
This was followed by taking SKYPE Snapshots on the Laptop of recognisable locations on the coach route, by setting the Laptop Cursor to the Snapshot position via LogMeIn, then holding the Netbook to the coach window and pressing the appropriate key – rather awkward in a coach travelling around 60 MPH.
Passwords were particularly difficult to key in.
Any e-mail sent to the Cats e-mail Address appears in my normal Account; but in a separate Sub-Folder below the Inbox and Sent folders.
The next test is to use the Netbook on the same route across the Forth Road Bridge, using the coach’s WiFi to access the Bridge Web Camera; and record the progress of the coach “from outside” on the Netbook “inside”.
Alex Dow
I have my hotmail and msn mail forwarded to my gmail account.
I still have to log in to hotmail\msn periodically to prevent my accounts from being deleted.
Got the info for doing this from Leo.
Gmail allows exception 2
Thanks Leo.
Many free E-Mail services — GMail and Yahoo! included — permit automatic forwarding of incoming mail to another account, so that E-Mail arriving at one account will automatically show up at the other. Perhaps this functionality will suffice for your purpose…?
To follow up on TC’s further comments.
Emails have to be sent to an e-mail address. Those sent to @hotmailetc will be held / processed by that mail server; similarly for @allinsolutions. The sender has to select whether to send to one or both. (As mentioned elsewhere, some e-mail providers do allow you to automatically forward e-mail to another e-mail address.)
As happens regularly, we are talking solutions, but your requirements are not clear. If you can explain what problem you are trying to solve, then I’m sure that Leo and his followers can suggest solutions.
Just remember if you log in to the primary account, say aaa@aaa.com and access bbb@bbb.com through aaa.com you are still limited as to what you can do with bbb.com email. While logged in to aaa.com, permenent deletion is not possible since you are not logged into that account, but are using a subordinate account. And in most cases when you send email that was received in the logged-in account for the subordinate account, if you reply it is sent using the primary or logged-in account. In general to effectively manage multiple email accounts, it is easier to use the ISP or host’s system, i.e., hotmail, gmail. That way you do not have two sets of emails to manage – one on your outlook type system and the other on the host server. This becomes rather critical if you have several different computers, i.e., laptop, desktop, smartphone, nettop, or other means of retrieving email.
I can’t imagine why he would want more than 1 account with the same ID. I use “pay for” accounts for my business and personal email. Both are my own domains, and as you mentioned, if I leave Comcast or my business ISP, both my email addresses come with me. I run two laptops, and a PC. When I’m away from home, both are accessible through web-based. Both ISP’s allow me to either “leave the messages on the server” or not. With my laptops, I choose to leave them on the server, and when I’m home in my office, my PC download removes them from the server, so I always have all my mail. The laptops and PC all have the same Folder structure, and the Rules are the same on all… Misc Folder, Junk, etc. And, by the way, one of the laptops is running Ubuntu Linux using Evolution (Outlook clone), so it really doesn’t matter what you’re using, you can still make it simple. I am a consultant, and travel often. When I’m out of the country on vacation, I take a USB drive with my tools on it, and I rent a pc for a few minutes at a kiosk, plug in, run my remote access program, check on my customers servers, my own system, and of course my emails. When I unplug, there is no instance of me ever being on that “rent a PC” in Mexico or Spain. Remember, KISS is best. (Keep It Simple, Stupid)
The question and some of the answers are confusing.
I have a work email address and 3 personal email accounts. Gmail is my “real” account. Yahoo I use for some subscriptions. Hotmail, I just wanted to see what it looks like and how it works. These 3 all start with the same name before @ but could never be considered as the same address or ID.
The Yahoo account also allowed me to create an “alias” or alternative email address on the same account, using the same Inbox. Therefore I could give the normal Yahoo address to business contacts, and the less professional sounding address to close friends or family. Mail arriving to these two addresses would be seen by me in ONE Inbox.
My Gmail address is equipped with Google Mail Fetcher, and I use this to get a copy of my work emails while I am on any other computer. On my home computer, I also download my email into Thunderbird. The Gmail download of course includes the fetched emails from the work account.
In every instance, I clicked the option to “Leave a copy of messages on the server”, so everything is still available everywhere.
I just wanted to say; gmail, being the awesome email provider it is, will forward all email+identifier@gmail.com to your email address, then you can apply a filter to stick those in different folders.
Although not exactly what the original question asked – Windows Live / Hotmail does allow you to link Windows Live IDs together so that you can switch from one to the other at the click of a button without having to login and logout again.