Need advice on changing email address

[Dogmama]

I'm considering going to another ISP which means my email address will change. I have a TON of things that go to my email address. I'm assuming there isn't a forwarding mechanism like the post office has...

Has anybody done this? What is the most painless way? My fear is that I'll miss something important & a message will get bounced into never-never-land.

[Biciclista]

the best way to do it is to maintain 2 emails for at least a month.
And tell everyone about your new email address in your contact list. and then write to them from the new address exclusively.
A few will get lost in the cracks.
If they really care, they'll figure out how to get in touch.

[Flur]

I recommend that you get an email address that is not tied to your ISP. You can pick any service you like (gmail, hotmail, inbox, etc) or try out a couple of them and then forward all the addresses to the one you like most or drop the ones you don't like. Once you've set up a non-ISP email, you can tell everyone you know and switch while you're still with your current ISP.

Next, go through all your email to make sure there isn't anyone you've missed. Make a list of what you're expecting (bills, newsletters, etc.). Then, once you've switched your ISP, send out a reminder email to everyone of your new address and let them know the old address is gone. And watch your inbox for the stuff you're expecting - if it doesn't appear, contact the sender.

[OakLeaf]

+1

And check with your old ISP - some do have a forwarding service, others will let you subscribe to an email address only for a smaller fee.

For the future, probably best to establish an advertiser-supported email address like yahoo, hotmail or gmail. Or maybe your school has free email for alumnae. Or something similar. Then you don't have to worry about this problem again.

[SadieKate]

Usually an old paid email address has a grace period for accessing it for don't depend on exact cut off dates as well as forwarding functions as said above. I'm still receiving forwarded email from my old sbcyahoo address 10 mos later.

If you use the web app (as opposed to Outlook, or if you use both) look for contact download/export functions where you can create a CSV file. You can then edit it and load it to a service such as gmail giving yourself a nice clean and data scrubbed address book.

pkq turned me onto gmail so I wouldn't have these problems again. Been well worth it.

[Dogmama]

Never thought about just getting a non-ISP email account - great idea!

Anybody have a preference between gmail & yahoo? Or are they all the same?

I could use my university email, but it seems like taxpayer abuse. And, as a child of the sixties, I'm always watching for Big Brother who is probably watching me. As we used to say, "It isn't paranoia if they really ARE following you!"

But I digress. If anybody has a preference, could you let me know? Thanks!!

[OakLeaf]

I prefer gmail (and I have both). If you want to access free Yahoo! mail via a POP server, it has to get forwarded to a "real" email address. Gmail forwards directly, and it uses a different network port, so that when the rest of your mail isn't working, you can often send and receive via gmail. If you prefer webmail, gmail has a nice threaded browsing format and a lot of sorting features, but I really never use that. Basically, my gmail address is the one my BFF's have - my Yahoo! address is the one I give out to potential spammers

As far as Big Brother watching you, for the most part they don't need ISP cooperation (actually they don't need it at all, it just makes it easier and more likely to be admissible in Court) - and to the extent that they ask for cooperation, it's really all about the ISP and not about the email address. Unless you have a very small local ISP (pretty rare these days), don't imagine you have any privacy at all online, and even then, don't imagine you have very much. They don't have the resources to read every single email, so unless they're targeting you personally, they just scan for certain keywords.

That said - if it bothers you to have corporate marketers scanning your email in addition to the government - then you're best to stick with non-advertiser supported email addresses, because the advertiser supported accounts are pretty explicit that it's your information that pays the bills. Just like the websites you visit in your browser, when you use an advertiser-supported email account, all your mail is scanned so that they can send you targeted advertising. It's all automated, and they claim that no personal information is provided to third parties, but still ya know.

Bottom line, if you really care about privacy, use snailmail via a private courier and use a tamper evident seal on your envelopes - not paranoid, just realistic. The other way of looking at it is the one most people adopt - just get used to it

[snapdragen]

As much as I dislike gmail (I know, I'm in a minority...) I would go with them. The spam filter is hundreds of times superior to Yahoo.

[kelownagirl]

I have an ISP and gmail. I use gmail for anything that might get spam. Only my close friends and family use my ISP. I like gmail and I actually set it up to forward to my ISP so I don't actually have to even log in to gmail if I don't want to. I can send and receive gmail from my regular mail account if I want to.

[RoadRaven]

My daughter has recently changed to gMail and loves it for all the reasons others have listed above.

She has about 7 emails with both ISP and non-ISP - gMail means everything comes to one place, she doesn't loose anything and the spam-filter is one of the best about.

[Tuckervill]

gmail gmail gmail! Love it. I never check any of my others, because they go to gmail.

The advertising cracks me up some times. When I go to the spam folder, I get recipes for Spam dishes. lol.

Karen

[Grog]

I have always been wary of free email services. Email is so important to me that I feel that it's a service I want to pay for, and not depend on someone else's business for.

The domain name corresponding to my last name has been bought by netidentity.com (a service of Tucows.com, a Canadian company). So I pay about $20 a year for myfirstname@mylastname.com . For another $25 I get myfirstname.mylastname.com which I am not really using but 10 years ago I had a blog and I like the archive to remain accessible somehow.

I access it through POP or through a web interface.

Overall it's been pretty good, and I hardly receive any spam. However these last few months they have had a series of technical issues, including one recently that lasted three days. I thought that sucked pretty badly, but the same happened to my university last year. Tucows gave me a 2-month credit and apologized profusely. Oh well. So I don't know if I really want to recommend them, but you can be aware they're out there. You can check if they have your last name by just typing: www.yourlastname.com or .net and see what happens.

I've had this address for over 5 years I think.

[Chile Pepper]

The domain name corresponding to my last name has been bought by netidentity.com (a service of Tucows.com, a Canadian company).

I am so glad you cleared that up. I couldn't figure out who owned me! It made no sense at all--but now I see the netidentity logo. Case solved.

[OakLeaf]

okay I had to look - "mylastname.com" is a German manufacturer of industrial baking machines! Their website is full of illustrations of cookies, wafers and ice cream cones. I knew there was a reason for my sweet tooth

[emily_in_nc]

I've been meaning to break away from my Earthlink account for several years now, and this thread finally inspired me to do it!

We've had DSL through a local telephone company for about four years now, had Earthlink dialup before that for years. I couldn't bear to change my email address everywhere (I do a LOT of online shopping, Yahoo groups, many email contacts, etc), so we've been paying $20/mo to maintain the Earthlink account even though we can get email through our ISP or obviously through gmail or a myriad of other free sources. I've actually had a gmail account since 2004 I've just never really used. It gets a lot of spam, but 100% of it is caught by their filters.

The Earthlink account comes up for payment in mid-Feb (I pay a year at a time to save $5/mo), and I've decided to change to the gmail addy. Since I have three months, I can do it over time. I need to rehost photos and a couple of small websites, update a zillion accounts, and tell all the people I correspond with (already starting that). DH is also on board, and we've already started making the change. Got Thunderbird set up to retrieve mail from gmail now as well as Earthlink. By Feb. we should have it all done. $20 saved monthly isn't a huge amount, but every bit helps in these tough economic times (especially since my company isn't doing well these days, and I may not have a job forever).

So thanks for reminding me that I need to get going on this! As long as google doesn't go under, I shouldn't have to go through this pain again for a long, long time.