The method is widely used in the laboratory, but less so industrially, where alcohols are often preferred alkylating agents.
[4] Intramolecular reactions of haloamines X-(CH2)n-NH2 give cyclic aziridines, azetidines and pyrrolidines.
N-alkylation is a general and useful route to quaternary ammonium salts from tertiary amines, because overalkylation is not possible.
Many other industrially significant alkyl amines are produced, again on a large scale, from the alcohols.
The Gabriel synthesis, involving the use of an equivalent to NH2−, only applies to primary alkyl halides.