Summary
The validity of an email address with a dot immediately before the @ symbol, such as name.@gmail.com, for Gmail is a nuanced topic. While standard RFCs explicitly prohibit such a format, Gmail's unique handling of dots in the local part of an email address means these emails are often delivered. Our findings highlight the discrepancy between theoretical validity and practical deliverability.
Key findings
- Gmail's processing: Gmail tends to ignore dots in the local part for delivery, meaning name.@gmail.com will be delivered to name@gmail.com.
- RFC non-compliance: According to RFC standards, particularly RFC 3696, a period cannot be used to start or end the local part of an email address.
- Client warnings: Some email clients may flag addresses with a trailing dot before the @ symbol as incorrectly formatted, prompting users to confirm sending.
- Practical deliverability: While Gmail's systems accept these addresses, other email providers or mail transfer agents (MTAs) may reject them due to strict adherence to RFCs.
Key considerations
- Validation practices: When building or cleaning email lists, consider flagging such addresses as invalid from an RFC perspective, even if Gmail accepts them. This aligns with standard email address validation best practices.
- Consistency challenges: Relying on Gmail's specific handling can lead to inconsistencies when sending to other mail providers that might not normalize or accept these formats.
- Future policy changes: Gmail's current acceptance of these addresses could be an unintended behavior, and future updates might lead to rejections, impacting your email deliverability.
- User experience: Even if delivered, such an unusual address format might be perceived as suspicious by recipients, potentially affecting open and click-through rates.
What email marketers say
Email marketers frequently encounter the unique ways Gmail handles email addresses, especially regarding the placement of dots. While many understand Gmail's general policy of ignoring dots within the local part, the question of a dot directly before the @ symbol often arises. Real-world testing and observed ESP behavior indicate a pragmatic acceptance by some systems, despite RFC non-compliance.
Key opinions
- Gmail's dot-blindness: Many marketers are aware that Gmail typically ignores dots within the local part, a behavior that seems to extend to dots placed before the @ symbol for inbound mail.
- Successful delivery observed: Direct experimentation often confirms that emails sent to addresses like name.@gmail.com successfully reach the name@gmail.com inbox.
- ESP acceptance: Some Email Service Providers (ESPs) currently process and accept these dot-ended addresses as valid formats for sending.
- List hygiene concerns: The existence of such addresses, even if deliverable to Gmail, prompts questions about list hygiene and data quality for marketers.
Key considerations
- Validation strategy: Marketers must decide whether to validate email addresses strictly based on RFC standards or on observed deliverability to major ISPs like Gmail.
- Cross-platform compatibility: While Gmail may accept these, other mailbox providers or internal systems might reject them, affecting overall email deliverability.
- Recipient perception: An unusual email address format in the 'To' field, even if delivered, could appear suspicious to recipients, potentially reducing engagement.
- Database management: Marketers need a clear policy on how to store and manage email addresses that technically violate RFCs but are practically deliverable to specific providers.
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks asks: Is an email address with a dot before the @ symbol valid for Gmail? I know they ignore the punctuation in the local part, but I'm unsure if name.@gmail.com is considered invalid in this specific case.
Marketer view
Marketer from Quora notes: Mail sent to Gmail accounts with or without dots will still go to the same account as long as everything else, such as the base username and domain, remains identical.
What the experts say
Email deliverability experts highlight the crucial distinction between adherence to RFCs (Request for Comments) and the practical realities of how major Mailbox Providers (MBPs) handle email. While Gmail often displays leniency in its inbound processing, experts generally advise adherence to strict standards for outbound email, acknowledging that other systems may not be as forgiving.
Key opinions
- RFC as the authoritative source: Experts universally confirm that an email address with a dot immediately preceding the @ symbol, such as local.@domain.com, is technically invalid according to official RFC standards.
- Gmail's inbound leniency: Despite RFC violations, Gmail's Mail eXchange (MX) servers appear to accept these invalid formats for inbound mail, processing them by effectively ignoring the trailing dot.
- Non-Gmail rejections: The fact that Gmail accepts these addresses does not guarantee deliverability through other Mail Transfer Agents (MTAs) or to other mailbox providers, which may enforce stricter RFC compliance.
- Potential for change: Some experts suggest that Gmail's current acceptance might be an unintentional consequence of their general dots don't matter policy and could be fixed in the future.
Key considerations
- Prioritizing RFC compliance: It's best practice to treat email addresses ending with a dot before the @ as invalid for general purposes, even if they occasionally reach Gmail.
- Outbound sender responsibility: Ensure your sending systems (ESPs) do not generate or attempt to send to such technically invalid addresses to maintain broad deliverability and avoid potential blacklisting or blocklisting.
- Robustness principle application: While Google operates by the robustness principle, being liberal in what it accepts, senders should be conservative in what they send to ensure maximum compatibility.
- Minimizing risk: Relying on current, potentially unintended, lenient behavior from an MBP can expose you to significant deliverability problems if their policies or systems are updated.
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks highlights: Mailgun's internal validation code for Gmail specifically outlines that dots are not permitted at either the beginning or the very end of the local part of an email address.
Expert view
Expert from Word to the Wise explains: Many modern mail systems, including Gmail, implement a degree of 'liberal acceptance' when receiving mail, even if the address format technically deviates from strict RFC compliance, prioritizing deliverability.
What the documentation says
Official documentation and technical specifications provide a clear foundation for email address validity. While certain mailbox providers, notably Gmail, exhibit unique behaviors regarding dot placement, the fundamental rules outlined in RFCs define the syntactically correct structure of an email address. This creates an interesting dichotomy between strict compliance and real-world implementation.
Key findings
- RFC 3696 standard: The RFC explicitly prohibits periods at the beginning or end of the local part of an email address, establishing a clear rule for structural validity.
- Gmail's 'dots don't matter' policy: Google's official documentation states that dots within a Gmail address are ignored for delivery, meaning john.smith@gmail.com and johnsmith@gmail.com resolve to the same account.
- Validation tool rules: Libraries like Mailgun Flanker, used for email validation, typically include specific rules that disallow dots at the beginning or end of the local part for Gmail addresses, aligning with RFCs.
- Functional ambiguity: Despite a trailing dot before the @ violating the RFC, Gmail's inbound processing overrides this for delivery, normalizing the address to its base form.
Key considerations
- Compliance versus reality: It is important to understand that while RFCs define technical validity, major providers like Gmail may have specific implementations for inbound mail that diverge from these standards.
- Tooling behavior: Email validation services and libraries are generally built to RFC specifications, and as such, they are likely to flag such addresses as invalid.
- Interpretation of 'ignored': The 'dots don't matter' rule in Gmail's documentation primarily refers to internal address normalization, not a blanket acceptance of all dot placements regardless of RFC rules.
- Avoiding issues: For the broadest compatibility and to prevent potential deliverability issues, especially with non-Gmail recipients, it is safer to adhere to RFC-compliant email address formats.
Technical article
Official Gmail Blog states: You have the flexibility to insert one or multiple dots anywhere within your email address; Gmail itself does not recognize these periods as unique characters for routing purposes, effectively ignoring them.
Technical article
Gmail Help Center clarifies: If another sender inadvertently adds dots to your email address when composing a message, you will still successfully receive that email, as Gmail internally treats all dotted variations as belonging to the same primary account.
Related resources
12 resources
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