E-mail addresses and case-sensitive

So, I learned something new at work today. :)


Are e-mail addresses case-sensitive? Kind of.

The front part (before the ''@'' symbol) are allowed to be case-sentitive (ex: ''Bob.Smith@...'' and ''bob.smith@...'' are treated as distinct mailboxes) -- but most mail servers allow any combination of caps, for the sake of robustness.

That said, if someone gives you an e-mail address with a certain type of capitalization, you're best to retain it, because their e-mail server could be one of the fussy ones.


In other words: Most of the time it doesn't matter.


(This information based on http://email.about.com/od/emailbehindthescenes/f/email_case_sens.htm)


--GG