I just love this system - this page was born for you Yahoo! converts :)
for additional context see Google

Forwarding email

2 minutes

1. Click "settings" in the upper right hand corner
2. Click the "forwarding" tab.
3. Click the radio button "Forward a copy of incoming mail to"
4. enter the email address you want all your email forwarded to.
5. the default option to "keep Gmail's copy in inbox" should be fine.
6. click "Save Settings" at the bottom.

you may click http://mail.google.com/mail/#settings/fwdandpop in the future to get back to this settings page.

Address Guard

I miss this feature the most from Yahoo! Plus - it allowed you to choose a dummy prefix (ie. yahoo07) and give out addresses like yahoo07-seedy@yahoo.com and it would direct to yahoo@yahoo.com.

Well I figured out how to do it on gmail - you sign up for another account (let's say google07@gmail.com) and set it up to fwd to your "real" account (let's say google@gmail.com)

You pass out emails like "google07+concern1@gmail.com" and "google07+site1@gmail.com" to sites that insist on you giving them an email that you feel is questionable or maybe even just a one-off.

spammers can even get "smart" and send email to google07@gmail.com all they want and in the case the spam filters don't catch it and it actually gets thru (not often believe me) - just log into your spam guard account (google07@gmail.com) and create a filter to nip it in the bud.

spammers don't get your real gmail acct name (google@gmail.com) in the end and they don't even get a domain name you're associated with in the end either!

hope this is useful!

Caveat

some sites check your email for "validity" and will reject a "+" sign in your email address. I'd estimate 20% of sites you'll have to choose a standard email address and if you happen to own a domain name (mydomain.com) - use something like seedysite.com@mydomain.com. it's the next best thing with the risk of spammers sending spam to sales@mydomain.com or something - it's a risk you'll have to take!)

Further Reading

• Get the Most out of Gmail - simple, down to earth article on Google Mail

Feature Requests

1. Simplify tagging conversations -- it is time consuming to add multiple labels to a conversation. ability to label emails using a text box (just like tagging)