<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=1822615684631785&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1"/>

Understanding Gmail Domains: gmail.com, googlemail.com, and google.com

Whether or not you use GMass, it’s useful to understand the difference between the three different domains that Google uses for email: gmail.com, googlemail.com, and google.com. Let´s take a quick look at how these three differ.

The “gmail.com” Domain: What most of us have for email

The most well-known domain for email is, of course, gmail.com. This is for regular Gmail users, and takes the form of “[email protected]“.

The gmail.com email domain in use.
The gmail.com email domain in use.

Before we get to the other domains, here are two fun facts about using your gmail.com domain.

One is that you can put one or more dots within the name part, however you want, and it won’t affect anything. So, for example, [email protected] is treated exactly the same as [email protected], though the first one might be slightly easier to read, because the words are separated with the dot.

Another is that you can put a plus sign (“+”) anywhere in the name portion and Gmail will ignore everything to the right of that plus until it gets to the “@” symbol. So, emails sent to [email protected] will be sent to the [email protected] inbox (although I should also note that when I tested this by sending an email to myself, for some reason I didn’t receive the email at all—but it did work when someone else sent me an email using the same address with the plus symbol in it).

One possible use for this “+” trick is that you can “tag” email that are coming in from certain sources. So, for example, your friends might write you to [email protected], but you could give out to business contacts [email protected] and it will also go to that same inbox. This way, you could immediately know which incoming emails were personal and which were business related. Plus, if you see you are getting spam sent to a particular “name+suffix” email address, you will know which sources have somehow gotten your email address in the hands of spammers.

The “googlemail.com” Domain: For two countries

Alternatively, googlemail.com is for Gmail users of a particular country where “Gmail”, as a trademark, was already taken. Those countries originally were Germany, the Russian Federation, and Poland. In each case, the Gmail trademark was unavailable, so Google was forced to use “googlemail” and therefore googlemail.com instead.

An email to the googlemail.com domain.
An email to the googlemail.com domain.

In Poland, the Gmail trademark domain is owned by a Polish poet group, Grupa Mlodych Artystów i Literatów—which is abbreviated “GMAiL”. In the Russian Federation, the trademark is owned by a Russian mail redirect service, Gmail.ru. So, with the Gmail trademark already taken, users there were assigned an email address of the format: [email protected].

As of 2012, the situation with Germany was straightened out and new users to Gmail there get assigned a gmail.com domain. People who signed up for Gmail prior to this switch have the option to switch to using gmail.com as well. In order to do that, they would go to the Accounts tab under Settings. The good thing about this change—if you haven’t already done it—is that Gmail will smartly update everything, so that there will be no disruption in receiving emails. For example, if someone emails you to your old [email protected] address, it will automatically arrive at your [email protected] inbox.

In fact, [email protected] and [email protected] point to the same mailbox. You can test this out right now by sending an email to yourself by taking your normal email address and using the googlemail.com domain. You’ll get the email instantly, proving that these domains are the same.

What’s also good about this is a new person can’t register your name at the other domain. For example, if you use [email protected], no one would be able to register [email protected]–which prevents someone using a very similar email as yours without your permission.

The “google.com” Domain: For Google employees

Finally, the google.com email domain is used for Google employees. So, as a fictional example, an email address like “[email protected]” would mean that Happy Hippopotamus was a Google employee.

What’s useful about this fact is that if you receive an email with a google.com domain, it should mean that the person who sent it does actually work for Google—as opposed to being a scammer or hacker doing a phishing attack for information about you.

The final option: your own domain with G Suite

The final way with which to use Gmail is to bring your own domain and set it up on G Suite. About half the world’s companies and almost all of the world’s startups bring their domain to G Suite to let Google manage their email.

The Upshot: They all work with GMass!

Whichever domain you use, they will all work with GMass. So don’t let these options stand in your way from making effective email marketing campaigns, whether for politics, recruiting, or any other way you can use GMass to automate reaching out to many people easily with Gmail.

See why 99% of users say they’ve had their best deliverability ever with GMass


Email marketing, cold email, and mail merge all in one tool — that works inside Gmail


TRY GMASS FOR FREE

Download Chrome extension - 30 second install!
No credit card required
Love what you're reading? Get the latest email strategy and tips & stay in touch.
   


58 Comments
  1. Thanks for this interesting article and for highlighting such attractive google domains opportunities. This information should be useful for me during searching.

    1. Hi Carolyn,

      Please contact our support team at https://www.gmass.co/blog/how-to-get-support-from-the-gmass-team/

      1. Hi,
        I am dealing with constant phishing emails. Right now, my Gmail URL is https://mail.google.com/mail/u/1/#inbox. Is that legit? Also, I am not getting any mail on my iPhone 11Pro Max because it wants to use my Google login info to do so but Google security says I am not using my ID to login to other apps.

        Help. My paranoia is off the charts.

      1. Hi Lokman,

        Upon checking, we’re not showing the email address used for this comment connected to GMass. If you’re referring to Google disabling your Gmail account, unfortunately, that decision is at the full discretion of Google, not GMass. You would need to contact Gmail support to request for your email account to be reinstated.

    1. Hi Ramesh,

      We’re sorry, we don’t understand what you meant by opening your Gmail account. Could you provide us with more details on what issue you’re experiencing?

  2. I opened a Gsuite mail account with special domain name for a short-term project and always access it using my iPad. How do I set it up so I can access it by way of my other devices such as laptop pc and desktop Mac?

  3. Hello, I know that gmail and googlemail are meant to be the same. However, I am confused because in my emails i have an inbox for gmail and another for googlemail (not sure why). They are not the same as for example recently one didn’t have anything for the last couple of months and the other (googlemail) had up to date ones. Gmail keeps asking me for a password but the one for googlemail doesn’t work. How can I get past this muddle and have one address and not two versions of it. Is one blocking the other? At the moment gmail seems to be blocking me sending emails by saying I need to put in the password. Thanks

    1. if you haven’t solved the issue already, try the gmail webmail at mail.google.com and not any desktop email client.

  4. Hello. Can I retrieve an email sent to google.com instead of my gmail.com? My account registered is gmail.com.

    1. Hi Jay,

      If you’re referring to an email sent to @googlemail.com rather than @gmail.com then that is not possible since they are 2 different email addresses.

  5. Hi I am wondering why I am getting an imail box coming up continuous saying my email account is being blocked. Please can you tell me how to remove it. It is very frustrating.

    1. Hi Caroline.
      I’ve just spent a few days trying to work out why my Outlook account kept requiring login details for my gmail account, accepting them so I could retrieve emails, but then forgetting them and asking for the login again soon afterwards.
      To cut a long story short, it appears Google have done something which now treats the logins the googlemail and gmail separately.
      It turned out my account was set up as googlemail, but I’ve always been able to login as gmail without any issues. But last week it appears that something changed, and whilst if I login in as gmail it will work for a short time on some operating systems (although not at all on iPad now), if I login as googlemail it works fine.
      This may be the same issue you are having

  6. Hi. I’ve been receiving emails from Apple in German. This is the latest which is translated below. My comments in [..]. I did not initiate this download. Further my concern is could someone in Germany share my email? If I send an email to [email protected] I would get it in my in box. Does this mean all my emails sent to gmail also goes to this other person???

    Hello Marie Ammermann, [not my name]
    Your Apple ID, [xxx]@googlemail.com [my email address except ends in googlemail] has just been used in the App Store to load Microsoft PowerPoint on a computer or device that was not previously associated with this Apple ID. You may also receive this email if you have reset your password since your last purchase.

    If you have initiated this download, you can ignore this email. It is only for your information in case you did not authorize the download yourself.

    If you did not initiate this download, we recommend that you change your password at iforgot.apple.com and read the information under Apple ID: Security and your Apple ID for further assistance.

    Yours sincerely
    Apple

    1. Hi Marie,

      Google offers its service under two different domains- Gmail.com and Googlemail.com. While a @gmail.com address is most common among users, for people from some countries @googlemail.com address is the only option to use Google’s email service. There is no difference between the two addresses as they both end in the same mailbox. If you own an email account [email protected], try send an email to [email protected] and you will see the magic.

      Some countries use googlemail.com instead but messages sent to Gmail and googlemail.com are the same.

      With regard to your Apple ID, we suggest to contact Apple support. As it states, you may want to change your password to your Apple ID and see if the problem still persists.

  7. Hi is there an account [email protected], it seems I used it on a Samsung account and have lost the password. Other Google account passwords will not work. Is there any way I can reset password?

  8. I get a ton of mail from different advertisers, but all with the googlemail.com domain. Can i block all mail from googlemail.com or do i have to do it individually by name? There are thousands and this is very tedious. If i cant block all, can i just have them sent to a folder? A folder that’s there (in gmail) already or do i have to make a new one? This is driving me crazy!!!

  9. My issue is I have been receiving emails at my gmail.com address that belong to someone with my same name. My account was set up as [email protected], hers is [email protected]. I’ve been told this isnt possible, that I own both with the dot and without. I get her church emails, car dealership emails from where she lives. A very long time ago, I had a message pop up asking if I wanted to link the email addresses and I must have said yes. Today i got an email from [email protected]. How do i fix this?

  10. Hi

    Don’t know if you can help, but here’s my problem: I have a gmail account ([email protected]), I send and get emails within my country (Germany) and to and from Canada and Netherland.
    Since a couple of days I have not received ANY mails from Canada. That is daily newsletters from CBC are not appearing.
    Any idea what the problem could be ? Can it be fixed ?
    Thanks
    Grietje

  11. No one said anything about sender address… What will happend if gmail.com user will use his old address googlemail.com to register some newsletter ? Will it be able to unregister ? The answer is NO! – google offering e-mail account with two receive addresses but only one address you can use as sender address – it gmail.com.

    Be aware to start using only gmail.com when You registering on some web pertals, other wise You will not be able to communicate with support because You will be forced by google to send messages from gmail.com and not from registered googlemail.com. Thats f… crap what google doing…

  12. If I create another email account through Google, can I use googlemail.com as a registration domain, (in lieu of gmail.com), or is it to be simply viewed as a forwarding service, as far as I should consider it? Thank you

  13. It is worth noting that the UK also had @googlemail.com too, not merely Poland and Germany. Again, because of trademark controversies. Needless to say, UK users can now bear their very own @gmail.com address since the dispute was resolved many moons ago; but it is seldom-known that the UK arm of Google also discovered the same issues.

  14. I opened an acct with an organisation, so mistakenly the extension on the gmail is @gmail.cm instead @gmail.com. pls can you help?

    1. Hi,

      Yes, please contact our support team (gmass.co/g/support) so that we can assist you in correcting the email address associated with your subscription.

  15. great article, very informative, so it’s the Polish and the Ruskies that have all of the GoogleMail addresses. thanks!

  16. My name’s are Jerry Wilson from Chicago, IL. I work as a Doctor by profession, was earning a little bit okay $3400 monthly, with my two kids I decided that I need to invest, the taught of my investment came after I meant a guy online who makes me feel comfortable and always talk me into self-employed business, I decide to always seek for his advice and he gave me a broker site where I can invest and have profit within a short period of time, I do really trust him but after I invested into the crypto site I discover he was behind everything and I have lost all my savings to him without knowing how he gets into me and lure me with his sweet fuckin words, he ruined my life and I couldn’t be myself anymore. So i decide to seek for help, omg… any attempt i made i get more scammed couldn’t figure out who was real and who wasn’t and at the end of it all i came up with a decision that nothing on the internet is real again. after 2 months i gave up on recovery the money i sent to broker site by bitcoin payment which is up to $65,992 i was on Spotify trying to get some lonely songs for myself when i came across jerrywilliamsoperation.software (@) gmail (.) com , it sounded real but i was scared to contact him cause it seems i’m not just lucky with making money on investment maybe i had to work through out my whole lifetime so i ignored but i was in a worker meeting when a discussion lead to bitcoin scam and i heard one of my co-worker saying wizard Philips got her funds back and i ask her how she reached him and she gave me this WhatsApp (+1 825, 522, 37 ,97, i reached out to Wizard Willians immediately i got home and we talked for long and i decide to put him to test, to end the whole story, i got more than what i loss on my new blockchain wallet, i was scared at first until he explained to me, a big thanks to the only real recovery hacker online and that’s wizard Willians who i have experienced his magic wizard actually.

  17. Hello,

    Helpful article. Whilst Gmail and Googlemail may be the same for mail ( I received mail in both accounts) , they are not the same when logging in to Websites. If I write gmail instead of googlemail I am unable to log in and must change to the other.

  18. “If you receive an email with a google.com domain, it should mean that the person who sent it does actually work for Google.”

    NOT NECESSARILY. The “from” address in email is trivial to spoof. The from address not proof of anything.

  19. Airmaxx Aircon Pte Ltd – Aircon Servicing Singapore
    51, Goldhill Plaza #07-10, Singapore 308900
    6513 2862
    ‹a href=”https://sites.google.com/view/aircon-servicing-singapore-1″›best aircon cleaning service‹/a›

  20. I was a victim of a cryptocurrency scam. Some amount of bitcoin was stolen from my wallet and diverted to an unpermitted account. My wallet management was informed, however, they had me wait a week before responding through email. They didn’t offer any assistance; alternatively, they mentioned that my phone might have been compromised and told me to get in touch with the authorities who couldn’t provide any solution to recover my bitcoin. When I was browsing through the internet trying to find a solution to get my stolen bitcoin back, I discovered a team of bitcoin recovery experts called Alister recovery. I then decided to contact them for assistance in getting my stolen money back. I have nothing but praise for Alister recovery because they were able to assist me in recovering the money that had been stolen. With the use of their sophisticated tools,Alister recovery was able to determine how the transaction was carried out. I have my money back and I am very thankful to Alisterrecovery for their amazing service. If you have any issues related to mine. Kindly contact them via mail Alisterrecovery AT gmail DOT com

  21. Let’s be honest, losing $70,000 worth of bitcoin is not something you can just brush off and move on from. There’s a rollercoaster of emotions involved – anger, regret, and overwhelming frustration. It’s enough to make even the calmest person want to punch a wall. Once you’ve discovered your costly error, take a deep breath and resist the urge to panic. Instead, gather your thoughts and accept that mistakes happen to the best of us. After composing yourself, it’s time to reach out to the experts at Pro Wizard Gilbert Recovery.They are just a phone call or email away, ready to lend a helping hand and guide you through the recovery process. To initiate the recovery journey, you’ll need to provide some crucial information to wizard web recovery. This may include the transaction details, wallet addresses, and any other relevant data that could aid in the recovery process. Throughout the recovery process,Pro Wizard Gilbert Recovery will work closely with you, keeping you updated on their progress. You can rest easy knowing that they are doing everything possible to bring your lost bitcoin back to you. Finally, after intense efforts and collaboration, the moment of truth arrives – the recovered bitcoin is returned to you. It’s a triumphant moment that leaves you with a profound sense of relief and gratitude toward the team at Pro Wizard Gilbert Recovery.This was how easy recovering my lost bitcoin was to Pro Wizard Gilbert Recovery. You can reach this expert at: prowizardgilbertrecovery(@)engineer(.)com & Telegram username: @Pro_Wizard_Gilbert_Recovery

  22. A lot of people have fallen for various frauds and got scammed. I’m given testimonies of how I got back my stolen Bitcoin wallet and funds with the help of (Tech-wizard Reinhard Maverick). >>>>! I implore you to get help from the expert WIZARD technology Reinhard Maverick. reclaimrightrecoverygroup @ G mail. [cOm] A Certified lost funds Recovery Expert. I once fell victim to an online imposter who convinced me to invest in Cryptocurrency by claiming to have made large profits from the investment. My blockchain wallet contained $369,000 that I lost, I had been reporting to the Authorities for a long time without getting assistance. Then I came here and finally, I got in touch with (WIZARD Reinhard Maverick. I explained everything to him in detail and also gave him the scammer’s wallet address..//! I was so surprised that Wizard Reinhard Maverick and his group helped me recover my wallet and lost crypto. tech-wizard Reinhard Maverick you are so good. (reclaimrightrecoverygroup AT G mail . com]
    I recommend Tech-wizard Reinhard Maverick to any victim.
    THANKS!!.

Leave a Reply to Michael Jones Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Find out why GMass is the most popular Gmail mail merge tool in the world

Easy to learn. Easy to use. Packed with time saving, email enhancing features.

Try GMass for free Then check out the quickstart guide to send your first mail merge email in minutes!

GMass

Share This