Changing email addresses

[Irishgirlyc58]

I actually just realized last week that I have the same email problem only with Comcast.
I’ve had a Comcast email about 25 years I think-1997.
It’s my primary email address although I do also have a Gmail address.
Just a few months ago I needed some information from 2010. Did a search in my email and got the information needed.
I don’t plan on leaving xfinity/Comcast but I suppose I should start cleaning up my emails and moving any pertinent information.
But where to keep it! I have One drive with MS that I pay annually for but that lends to the same problem. Google docs I guess??
I need to read through this thread again for ideas.

Thanks for posting this!

 

[CaptTom]

...Just a few months ago I needed some information from 2010. Did a search in my email and got the information needed...

Good point! One thing you can do is use a local e-mail client which downloads the messages to your own computer (or even phone.) You can still check your mail using the provider's web site, but every so often open the e-mail client software and make sure it sync's up. I use Thunderbird on Windows, but there are e-mail clients for all platforms.



I always download (detach) attachments I might need again to my laptop. This also removes them from the e-mail file, saving space and keeping it fast and reliable.


You can also print important messages to PDF or some other electronic format, or save them as text files. This way you can organize them in some way which makes sense to you.

 

[W2R]

I don't have any problem with my main email address, so I have kept it for over 30 years.

 

[Kwirk]

Many years ago I seemed to be having a new email provider every few years. To alleviate the pain of changing, I created an email address with my college alumni association, eg kwirk@alum.college.edu (an example, not my actual email). The alumni address can be easily redirected to any other address. So, if gmail were to start charging or disappeared, I can quickly jump to another email provider just by changing the redirect.

My college is happy to be able to send me solicitations and promises to continue the service indefinitely.

Gmail has remained free and more stable than any of my prior email companies but I couldn't predict it at the time.

 

[Sunset]

I realized this issue in 2000 , and started to use pobox.com , surprised they are still around (and more expensive).
Soon after I got my own domains, and have my email on the domain hosting ISP.
Have switched hosting companies, but no issue with email as it goes to the domain name.
If I didn't have my own domains, I'd use gmail as I don't think it's going away.

I'm sure there is a priority to where the email is stored so I'd just start going down the list: banks, brokerages, work, doctors, friends, etc.

Nice thing is you will be able to leave behind the organizations that are not that important.

 

[FLSUnFIRE]

I've been procrastinating this for decades. I made a throw away Yahoo address in the 90's that became my primary and their spam filter works well but it is out there all over the dark web... I've never been compromised and use unique passwords everywhere but a few times a year I get 2FA texts I didn't initiate. More recently I made a gmail for "official" mail but it's already a targeted spam generator too despite being careful and I don't like the Gmail interface. Still thinking how I want to do it or stick with Yahoo.... I'm pretty happy with the service and consider paying for the upgrade from time to time.

 

[Lakedog]

After changing ISPs years ago and seeing the mail issues, I switched to gmail as my primary which has worked really well for me. I also have yahoo as a secondary email but much prefer gmail. Seem to get way more spam on yahoo even though I rarely use that email address.

 

[easysurfer]

I've gone through several primary email changes over the years. Prodigy, earthlink, AOL.

Most recently was from yahoo/att to Comcast. Thinking back, the updating of emails wasn't that bad. I have over 300 logins (343 to be exact as of today. Counted from my password manager).

But many of them logins I may never need again. Like concert venues requiring me to create an account just to buy a ticket. But I may never return to that venue.

There were a several that did have my email as the login id. But today I may only have a few that still have an old email as the login today.

I use aol as my backup email. No longer a paying aol subscriber, but their email is fine and still a freebie .

 

[brucethebroker]

Interesting thread, OP.
thanks for posting. B

 

[sengsational]

Burned Early

I don't remember which ISP, I think right after the Prodigy test market thing I used, and it was after a short stint, I realized I needed to dump them, and had the OP's problem. But back then, the tiniest of scale compared to now. But that gave me the incentive to get a domain and find an email hosting company. I used everyone.net until they went out of business, then I switched to Google, which I didn't really want to do, but it was and is free, except for the snooping cost. And I have always used a local email client to download everything, and not depend on the server. I currently use Thunderbird. And I also have an application that indexes the emails so I can efficiently find things, even from years ago.

As to how I would tackle the problem, I guess my keychain equivalent is my password manager (KeePass). If each entry has a date associated with creation and last use, those might be helpful in prioritizing.

One thing to keep in mind is that even if you miss an important one, it's probably not that big of a deal; if the entity is worth it's salt, it will have a way to get you back on board easily. And for the "junk relationships", where you don't care about maintaining history, just create a new account. In fact, that might be a first pass through the keychain... strike all where you don't care about history.

 

[Cobra9777]

Back in the late 90s, I used my work email with my online accounts. Later, when I started getting spam on my work email, I decided to change them all to a personal email account. But I was also in the process of changing ISPs. So I decided it was better to use a personal email account not tied to any ISP. I set up a gmail account in 2006 that I still use today.

I also never use the phone number provided by my cellular carrier. I use a free Google Voice number. I can make voice calls, video calls, and text using the GV number. Works instantly on any device (including PCs, tablets) as soon as I log into Google. Also works internationally.

I change cellular carriers a lot, always chasing a better deal on large amounts of data. But I never bother porting a number. They just provide me a new number, which I immediately block from all incoming calls and texts, so I don't get bothered by the prior person's debt collectors. Interestingly, unlimited voice and text mean nothing to me since I only use mobile data and WiFi.

 

[Sojourner]

If you have Comcast email, you can continue using your email even after you disconnect and stop paying for service. You can then forward/retrieve your email from Comcast to/through your new email provider/portal.

"Your email account will remain active if you access it using the Xfinity Connect web portal at least once every nine months".

https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/using-email-only

^this. Even when you cancel your paid service, ISPs typically continue to maintain your email account indefinitely and keep it active so long as you occasionally log in. My decades-old bellsouth.net email address still functions perfectly. IMHO, OP need not be in any huge rush to migrate all his login accounts to a new email address.

 

[cranberryjoe]

I had to do this about 15 years ago before I changed ISPs. Here's what I did:

1. Create gmail account and start using it as my main account
2. Set up mail forwarding on my (old) ISP email to forward to my gmail account
3. In gmail, create a rule to assign a label to all mail forwarded from my old account so I can easily identify forwarded mail
4. Tediously go through all my old archived mail to find sites that send me mail and change them to send to my new gmail (today, I would do this by using my password manager to find those sites, even more tedious given I use so many more sites)
5. Watch my gmail for several months looking for forwarded messages (that label in step 3), and go change those sites to use my gmail account
6. After the forwarded mail slows down enough, switch to the new ISP (I think my old ISP continued to forward emails for some period of time, maybe a year? I don't recall).

It was tedious but effective. After all this time I will soon be moving and switching to yet another ISP, but I won't need to do all this since I still use that gmail account.

 

[FIREarly]

What I recommend is that you acquire a domain the you and only you own and control (ie yourlastname.org or whatever). You will have to pay yearly to register the domain maybe $15/year.

Don't you have to pay for the host/storage space too which is a separate annual charge?

Which site ONLY charged for the domain OR is this because it's only used for email and not a website?

 

[Librarian]

My father just went thru this with Windstream

I think I'm finally ready to address an error I made about two decades ago. When I signed up for high speed internet (was Roadrunner, now Spectrum) I got my main email account with them, an @.rr.com account. I've used it for everything except family which I have other accounts. Just about everything I have a password or account for uses this as my identifier. Which means if I change internet providers I have to go through the hassle of changing that identifier with every business/entity I want to keep contact with. IRS, SS, insurance, and so forth.

I guess there's no way around this. With the advent of streaming and many bundling deals offered out there the only way I can ditch Spectrum is open up my passwords file on Safari and go through changing it on any entity in which I want to continue contact with. Has anyone else gotten trapped like this? I can't imagine there's a workaround as it would involve Spectrum's cooperation. Like, yeah. I just noticed my autopay to them jumped about $30, no explanation.

Moved to assisted living & Spectrum is their provider.
He pays Windstream a few bucks a month (less than $5) to keep his old windstream account.
Just an idea to look into.

 

[gooddog]

This is a timely post. I have been switching my email accounts over to Proton the last few days, from Yahoo. Had Yahoo for the last 25 years, but don't care for the way they are running things the last year or so. It is best to use a generic email provider, and one that is not tied to a service that you may not use some time in the future.

Proton makes it very easy to import your contacts and emails from a variety of other email sources. Free storage up to a gig. If you do go with Proton, be sure to make extra email folders in the account you are importing over to Proton as they have a limit on how many folders you can have..but if you sneak them in while importing it seems there is no limit.

 

[Bruno]

I still have an OLD @hotmail.com account that I send all my junk and dont want to here from you again account. I also setup an @outlook.com account for my regular emails. I also have a @gmail.com just because i got a Iphone.

 

[H2ODude]

Just as an update, I went ahead with a gmail address I've long had but hardly used, which will be my default email for MOST things. I've sent an email to anyone on my contact list to use my iCloud email I've long had but not used much, as well credit union and Fidelity (oh, and Amazon ). Figured I'd just watch the Spectrum emails for a year to see who I'd be missing. So far, not a single email of any import.

I think what had me so bent was that the @rr.com address was the IDENTIFIER of who I am on a lot of stuff, for example Apple (and I'm ashamed of all their stuff I have) identifies me as @rr.com and that address is my recovery email for password changes etc. I changed that over to the gmail address. I'm not sure I'm quite ready to pull the Spectrum plug, but darn close to it. If anything comes up, I'm sure there'll be a workaround or way to restore.

As an add on, I had a previous loss of address problem that really vexed me. I had an old email that I'd used for family and close friends. Somehow I lost the password on computer (was replaced, but did restore from previous) several times. Same with phone. For some reason phone kept on using the password when logged in, but on last replacement, it no longer worked. It was an Apple @.me account. I went through all sorts of hoops, apple and Google searches, and gave up. Somehow depending on when opened it got quashed by iCloud or other. Anyway, I gave up. It was nice because I got it so early it was (myname)@me.com; no numbers or having to identify me from other (mynames). Oh well, life's just fine now.

 

[sroby2020]

Yep!

I started the email change process a couple of years ago. It has been a major pain. Give yourself plenty of time to make the changes. The is always some account I forgot about....
I'm almost ready to ditch the old email. 99% of what I get there now is considered spam.

 

[badatmath]

My first email account was a free provider - but it went away. And then the next one also went away. (This was pre-gmail). So now I use the ISP.

 

[KarenF]

I did that too, but mine was a professional society email and I had to change the email or keep paying several hundred dollar a year in professional society fees. I got a new email address (Gmail) and started updating my email address everywhere. I have a password manager so that helped. It took me several months to switch over, but I could have done it faster.

 

[indiajust]

I switched to a forwarding email and have several of them. that way i can abandon them if they get spammed.

Apple and Blur provide an unlimited number of individual forwarding emails, specific to each user. That way if it gets sold or hacked, you just have to redo the one email.

Having 500 plus forwarding emails is an immense simplification. I can kill any individual email that gets hacked or sold, and I can alter the destination email at will. This prevents profile consolidation and theft.

 

[Shardo]

First time on line in the late 90's I got a Yahoo e-mail address which is still my primary, never used any ISP e-mail addresses.

Would like to hear about the Yahoo mail SNAFU someone mentioned.

 

[Richard4444]

Gee - I remember my old Prodigy email address, the one they gave you when you opened the box with the disc . Next was AOL and I used it for likely over 200 places along the way. Next was gmail. I still keep AOL for a lot of websites, since I see no reason to change every 'maybe once in a while' website or vendor and changing passwords, etc. Giving an AOL email address now is like telling your age so it's gmail moving forward. I wonder when gmail will date you - something newer will likely come down the Pike ... it always has.

Rich

 

[pdxgal]

Another thing I did was get on board early with Gmail, and before that, Yahoo and even AOL. I got my real name as an e-mail address in all of them, and some other good ones that I use where I don't want my real name broadcast..

I was an early adopter back in the day. Got a Hotmail account with my name around 1994. Now it marks me as an aged boomer. So I also have a more cryptic gmail name.

OP, I feel your pain. My Hotmail email is so embedded in my life it’s be hard to back out if it. Good luck!