Broadband switch from BT to Plusnet - effect on emails (historical and future)

[#1]

I was looking for some help from forum members. I've been a BT broadband customer for over 20 years and during that time I have used my BT email addresses for all my business and personal emails. Eventually having decided to retire I have decided I could no longer afford BT prices and so have started the switch to Plusnet. However, it means that I will lose my BT email addresses (this is the reason I haven't switched sooner) and what I want to know is how I can preserve my historical received and sent emails which are all contained in folders within MS Outlook and is there anything I can do to get any future incoming emails forwarded to my new email address ?

[#2]

Only by keeping your BT eMail address to do the auto forwarding. BT will charge you £7.50 / month for an eMail address if you don't have broadband with them. If it were me, I would set up an eMail with one of the non isp email providers (gmail / outlook.com etc.) so that if you move from Plusnet, you don't have the same problem in the future.

A flurry of eMails to your contacts would be the best way to advise them of your new eMail address.

Don't forget any websites or accounts that you have registered with your BT eMail as they too will need changing. It's a royal pain changing a long time eMail address and as you've noted, is a reason why a lot of people stay with one ISP.

Any eMails already downloaded to your Outlook folders should be safe - just don't delete the BT account from Outlook as it may delete all associated folders - I'm not sure of that bit so maybe worth more research. You can do backups of Outlook folders as an added precaution.

[#3]

Welcome to the forums, @pmd60 . I'll try and answer your question. I assume your historical emails are stored on your computer ?- in which case they will stay there, even if you lose your BT email addresses.

As regards forwarding, that is something you will have to ask BT, but if I read your post correctly and you don't want to pay BT for a 'mail only' account then the only option you have is to advise all of your correspondents of your new address - a pain, I know, but different ISPs don't play nice once you leave them.

Maybe some of the more experienced members on here will come up with suggestions, but as someone who has only moved ISP once in his internet life, and from one which allowed me access to their email platform for 6 months after leaving, giving me plenty of time to inform my respondents, I can't make any other suggestions - sorry.

[#4]

@davel8r I knew someone would get there before me. 😉. Your explanation is probably better than mine, so thanks.

[#5]

Thank you very much both @davel8r and @jab1 for your valued input. To be honest I'm not too fussed about future emails - I have retired now so in many ways I don't want business emails coming in but it's always nice to know who's trying to contact you and why. But the most important thing is to preserve old emails which yes @jab1 they are saved within my MS Outlook folders. So I presume as long as I don't delete Outlook they will stay there for me to access when I need to reference something.

Can I ask both of you another question though about emails ? What is the benefit of having a personised email address. As a coincidence today I got an email from LCN who I have used for domain hosting in the past and they have made me a special offer of my name.co.uk for £1 for the first year. Being a non business person now why would I want this as opposed to just having a gmail account ?

[#6]

@pmd60 Correct - leave the BT account within Outlook and they should stay there, but as @davel8r said, it is a good idea to save the folders elsewhere as well - even if you never look at them, if Outlook suffers a terminal failure, you will lose them, and I'm a great believer in having data backed up in more than one place.

Mind you, if you follow best practice and maintain regular back-ups of your system, you should be able to restore them anyway.

I haven't ever used a domain - no need or desire, but if LCN are offering that option I would grab it with both hands - after checking the renewal costs of course.

The advantage of a personal domain over Gmail/Outlook (IMO) is that they don't track and mine your emails for commercial gain, and are totally independent of ISP.

[#7]

@jab1 Beat me to it this time 🙂

@pmd60 check that what they're offering gives you what you need. ie: is it just a domain they're offering or does it include an eMail service as well? Are there limitations on attachment sizes? I'd reinforce @jab1  question s well - what is the renewal cost. 

I don't see any benefit in a personalised eMail either. I've had a yahoo and hotmail account for many, many years and never had an issue.

good luck with whatever you decide.

[#8]

@pmd60 Is the BT email account set up as POP3 or IMAP? If POP3 you should be fine, otherwise I've got a feeling your emails would disappear if the mail server is no longer accessible.

[#9]

@Browni Good point, but is it not possible to move the emails to a 'local' folder, thus saving them to your machine? I admit I don't really know, having always used POP for that reason, but I'm sure I've seen 'Local Folders' referenced on a screenshot of someone using IMAP.

[#10]

@jab1 It's pretty straight forward.

All you need to do is copy/move the emails to a new or existing .pst file, POP3 uses .pst by default.

[#11]

Thanks again @jab1 @Browni and @davel8r for your comments it is POP3 I believe. What's the best way of saving/backing up those old emails ?

As regards the choice between a gmail account name and a personalised email name if in business it's a no-brainer but no longer in business I suppose the personalised email address just has snob value. I am worried though about years 2,3 4 etc when LCN might rocket the price and charge a lot extra for greater size capacity (the price quoted only includes up to 25 MB) but I am intrigued about your comment @jab1 that the personalised emails don't attract commercial emails. I didn't think anyone was immune to phishing and spam mails. 

[#12]

---

@Browni wrote:

@jab1 It's pretty straight forward.

All you need to do is copy/move the emails to a new or existing .pst file, POP3 uses .pst by default.

---

Thought so, but as I have used ThunderBird for 15+ years as a POP client, I've never worried.

[#13]

Thank you @jab1 and @Browni , will do that then.

[#14]

@pmd60 If the email account is POP3 you won't need to copy the emails like I mentioned earlier because they will already be in a .pst file.

A ,pst file is where Oulook stores it's data and there's a good description here including how to find your own files.

[#15 · Accepted solution]

Moderators Note

This topic has been moved from ADSL Broadband to email