E-mail hosting provider that can set up aliases with wildcards [closed]

Question

I am looking for an e-mail hosting provider that allow e-mail aliases containing wildcards.

In more detail: I own my own domain. I want an e-mail hosting provider to manager e-mail for my domain.

Now, to help deal with spam, I often give different e-mail addresses to different organisations. These e-mail addresses always start with the same prefix, but then differ. So, for example, I might give out these e-mail addresses:

• joe-somecompany@sample.com
• joe-different@sample.com
• joe-spammer@sample.com

I want to be able to go to the e-mail provider's control panel and set up some e-mail aliases like this:

• joe-spammer@sample.com --> bounce/discard (because this address has been sold to spammers)
• joe-*@sample.com --> redirect to my-real-email-address@sample.com

What I don't want to do is either have to set up every single e-mail address individually (because I make them up whenever I need them), nor do I want to have a general catch-all for any unrecognised address in my domain (because I don't want to be carpet-bombed with spam when a spammer runs a dictionary attack against my domain name.)

Although this seems like a useful feature to have, it seems to be a little-known feature and I've not seen anybody advertise this feature. My current hosting provider offer this but I want to move away from them, so I need another provider that will continue to work with all the e-mail addresses I've been using for years.

Alternatively, I could use mail server software that runs on Windows - I have seen some commercial packages offering this feature but they cost more than I can afford - are there any suggestions for low-cost software packages?

Answer 1

1&1 supports * wild cards like you describe.

Answer 2

Gmail and therefore Google Apps supports this.

You have a single email user set up as joe@sample.com then add your wildcards, anything you like, after a + e.g.:

• joe+somecompany@sample.com
• joe+different@sample.com
• joe+spammer@sample.com

The + bit can be added at any time when you give out your address and you don't have to create a user or alias or anything - they are then all delivered to the joe@sample.com mailbox.

I use several domains with Google Apps and use this function all the time to try and trace where I am being spammed from.

More info here:

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/2-hidden-ways-to-get-more-from-your.html

There is a free version and a paid version which has more functionality.

Setting up Google Apps is extremely easy. If you own multiple domains you can also set up one account and add the other domains as aliases and use a single mailbox and multiple aliases as well.