Wondering what the dots mean in Gmail addresses? Can an email address begin with a period? Find out here whether and how you can use a period in an email address.
First, It’s Too Warm for Snow
You watch the rain pour gray and dark at some 34 degrees F (1 ℃) through the late autumn air.
Then, you watch the thermometer. It is getting colder by the minute, and the rain turns into thick, white flakes of snow.
What’s going on here, especially since there’s hardly any wind and surely no nighttime cooling the air?
The falling snow has paved its own cool path: as the falling crystals melt to form raindrops initially, the phase change takes energy—in the form of heat—from the surrounding air. This cools the air enough eventually to allow snow to reach the ground in what has been dubbed isothermal snowfall.
Now, dots of rain or dots of snow, are email addresses cool enough for them?
Can I Use a Period in an Email Address?
Yes.
The period (full stop or dot .) is part of the characters you can use in email addresses with certain restrictions.
Specifically, you can
- use a period surrounded by other characters as part of the username in an email address.
Examples:ex.ample@ladedu.comandex.am.ple@ladedu.comare both valid email addresses.
When Periods Are Not Valid in Email Addresses
Since periods must be surrounded by other characters in the username part of an email address, there are three places where they cannot appear in particular:
- An email address cannot start with a period.
Example:.example@ladedu.comis invalid. - A period cannot come immediately before the ‘@’ sign.
Example:example.@ladedu.comis invalid. - Two periods cannot follow each other.
Example:ex..ample@ladedu.comis invalid.
Periods in Email Addresses: FAQ
What’s the deal with period and dot in Gmail addresses?
With some email services—notably Gmail—, the period makes no difference in the email address and dots let you effectively create email aliases.
Example: ex.ample@gmail.com, ex.a.mple@gmail.com and example@gmail.com all denote the same Gmail account, and emails to all these addresses will be delivered to example@gmail.com.
Can I use other dot or period characters in email addresses?
No.
Only the full stop period character (ASCII code 46, Unicode codepoint U+002E) is valid as part of an email address.
The following period-like characters will not work in email addresses:
| Unicode Name | Unicode Codepoint | Display |
|---|---|---|
| One dot leader | U+2024 | ․ |
| Combining dot below | U+0323 | ̣ |
| Hebrew mark lower dot | U+05C5 | ׅׅׅ |
| Arabic symbol dot below | U+FBB3 | ﮳ |
| Arabic vowel sign dot below | U+065C | ٜ |
| Tai Tham combining cryptogrammic dot | U+1A7F | ᩿ |
| Vedic tone dot below | U+1CDD | ᳝ |
| One dot leader | U+2024 | ․ |
| Dot operator | U+22C5 | ⋅ |
(Can email addresses have periods first published April 2020, last updated September 2024)