cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Keeping mail domain after leaving PN

bid19ern
Newbie
Posts: 1
Registered: ‎02-05-2021

Keeping mail domain after leaving PN

Does anyone know how we keep our 20 odd-year-old Free online email account with PN these days? most of the time speaking to PN support they have no idea what free-online was and I have a hell of a time to keep it. 

 

But looking at moving to another provider and want to make sure I keep hold of the mailbox. 

20 REPLIES 20
Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 22,922
Thanks: 9,538
Fixes: 158
Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: Keeping mail domain after leaving PN

Hello,

A warm welcome to the forums.  It is a little disappointing that this request has not been picked up before now.  Here’s is the soup to nuts process description for your question.

 

Email only accounts

When your account is cancelled, any additional services you have such as email, web-space, cgi-service, etc. will stop working. If you want to retain your email service after your account is closed, you must advise Plusnet before the account is closed. There used to be a charge for email only accounts, but they are now free of charge.

Resurrecting an account as email only requires manual intervention from both yourself and Plusnet. The initial stage in account resurrection gets the default email address restored. You then need to setup any secondary Plusnet email address(es) yourself, at which point you'll be able to once again send and receive emails from those addresses.

If you have secondary email address(es), after you have recreated those email addresses, you will need to ask that their contents are restored by updating the existing thread or try posting on the generic email restore topic. Please note that these backups are kept for 30 days only.

The process should go something like this...

  1. Prior to your account being closed, you must tell Plusnet that after your account is closed you wish to retain the account as email only
  2. You need to make a note of all of your Plusnet email address(es) by going to manage my mail at https://plus.net/email
  3. Your account is terminated
  4. Plusnet resurrect the account as email only
  5. Plusnet will restore the default mailbox - you might need to change the name before the @ symbol to what you had before
  6. You recreate any secondary email address(es) and then request that their contents are restored
  7. Plusnet restore the secondary mailbox(es) content

Everything should then work as it did previously, however please note that emails sent to the email address(es) between the account being closed and the email addresses being recreated might...

  1. Be returned to the sender as un-routable (no such domain)
  2. Be returned to the sender as undelivered (no such addressee)
  3. All be delivered to the default mailbox if catch-all is enabled

 

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

norush
Grafter
Posts: 42
Thanks: 6
Registered: ‎18-10-2016

Re: Keeping mail domain after leaving PN

I was just about to ask a similar question when I spotted this. I am leaving PN at the end of June; didn't want to, but they can't provide me with a vdsl connection at my new address owing to a waiting list, so had to jump ship to the parent company who can!

I assume the post by Townman also applies to me; only have 3 email addresses with PN, which I access via Outlook, but it's going to be a pain to change them so would rather hang on to the domain. I do, however, have a couple of gmail addresses so it might be easier to swap to them rather than go through the rigmarole of trying to hang on to the PN email addresses; decisions decisions!

I welcome any helpful comments on the subject!

Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 22,922
Thanks: 9,538
Fixes: 158
Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: Keeping mail domain after leaving PN


@norush wrote:

I was just about to ask a similar question when I spotted this. I am leaving PN at the end of June; ... I assume the post by Townman also applies to me


The advice applies to anyone and everyone leaving Plusnet and wishing to retain their existing Plusnet Email addresses.


I do, however, have a couple of gmail addresses so it might be easier to swap to them rather than go through the rigmarole of trying to hang on to the PN email addresses; decisions decisions!

 


The "issue" is not a matter of your configuration of your email addresses in your email application, but more one of what address does the outside world have / use for you?  Losing your existing email address is akin to losing your existing mobile telephone number - not great.  Ideally people should not setup email services @yourprovider.com whoever that provider is, be that an ISP or Gmail, Yahoo etc., but rather set up your own domain name and have it hosted by a hosting provider.  That way you can change service providers as often as you like, whilst retaining your email addresses.


I am leaving PN at the end of June; didn't want to, but they can't provide me with a vdsl connection at my new address owing to a waiting list, so had to jump ship to the parent company who can!

That is an odd statement, unless that at your new address only FTTP infrastructure is available, in which case Plusnet cannot supply service full stop, for they do not do FTTP.  If the new address has FTTC available, and Plusnet report that service availability is on a wait list (for more capacity to be provided) then no other ISP using BT infrastructure is going to be able to offer service.  So unless it is a completely different infrastructure provider - such as Virgin Media - I would be most suspicious about a claim that service can be provided by another ISP if Plusnet advise that there is a wait list for new capacity.

When a cabinet has reached current capacity, availability can change day to day whilst additional capacity is facilitated, for someone on that cabinet cancelling service will make a port spare. It might be worth checking back with PN to see if there has been a change in availability status.

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

norush
Grafter
Posts: 42
Thanks: 6
Registered: ‎18-10-2016

Re: Keeping mail domain after leaving PN

Thanks for your input Townman, the only option PH gave me was 0.8Mbps broadband owing to no availability for vdsl on the cabinet. Spoke to BT who offered me g.fast 150 as my only option which is what I've signed up for. Obviously PH don't have that option to offer me, and as my good lady uses logmein rather a lot,the dialup speed option wasn't going to work for us.

As for the email business, in an ideal world I would get my own domain name, but being retired it's now not such a big deal and if necessary I'll just change over to my gmail addresses, rather than having to jump through hoops to keep a couple of PN ones.

jab1
Legend
Posts: 16,818
Thanks: 5,339
Fixes: 248
Registered: ‎24-02-2012

Re: Keeping mail domain after leaving PN

@norush No hoops to jump through, just advise PN you want an email-only account when you leave them - preferably the day following your agreement with your new ISP. This should create a ticket on your account noting your request. You will 'lose' the email facility for a few days, but when advised, you just set the mail boxes up again from scratch.

John
norush
Grafter
Posts: 42
Thanks: 6
Registered: ‎18-10-2016

Re: Keeping mail domain after leaving PN

I phoned PN today to enquire about keeping a mail only a/c after cancelling my contract but was told it is no longer possible, so worth bearing in mind if you're planning on leaving.

jab1
Legend
Posts: 16,818
Thanks: 5,339
Fixes: 248
Registered: ‎24-02-2012

Re: Keeping mail domain after leaving PN

@norush You were totally incorrectly advised - I would ring back and hope you get an intelligent agent.

I have just this week done it, so I know it is possible.

John
Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 22,922
Thanks: 9,538
Fixes: 158
Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: Keeping mail domain after leaving PN

Bad advice!!

When I’m home, I will post my updated guidance with refers to the relevant work instruction!!

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

norush
Grafter
Posts: 42
Thanks: 6
Registered: ‎18-10-2016

Re: Keeping mail domain after leaving PN

i have spent a considerable amount of time today changing all my plus.com accounts over so I won't be trying to keep a mail account with PN after all. It's quite worrying how one advisor will tell you one thing and then another will totally contradict them, but hey, what do I know 🤣

jab1
Legend
Posts: 16,818
Thanks: 5,339
Fixes: 248
Registered: ‎24-02-2012

Re: Keeping mail domain after leaving PN

@norush Neither I nor Townman are Plusnet employees, just customers, but we do know what we are talking about.

John
norush
Grafter
Posts: 42
Thanks: 6
Registered: ‎18-10-2016

Re: Keeping mail domain after leaving PN

@jab1, yes I'm well aware you and Townman are not PN employees; thanks for your input but I'm finished with PN from the end of this month and have no intention of calling support again.

Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 22,922
Thanks: 9,538
Fixes: 158
Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: Keeping mail domain after leaving PN

For the benefit of anyone else looking here...

Email only accounts

When your account is cancelled, any additional services you have such as email, web-space, cgi-service, etc. will stop working. If you want to retain your email service after your account is closed, you must advise Plusnet before the account is closed. There used to be a charge for email only accounts, but they are now free of charge.

Resurrecting an account as email only requires manual intervention from both yourself and Plusnet. The initial stage in account resurrection gets the default email address restored. You then need to setup any secondary Plusnet email address(es) yourself, at which point you'll be able to once again send and receive emails from those addresses.

If you have secondary email address(es), after you have recreated those email addresses, you will need to ask that their contents are restored by updating the existing thread or try posting on the generic email restore topic. Please note that these backups are kept for 30 days only.

The process should go something like this...

  1. Prior to your account being closed, you must tell Plusnet that after your account is closed you wish to retain the account as email only - contact the Customer Options Team - agents receive few requests for this, so if there are any doubts refer the agent to KBMS article #3349
  2. You need to make a note of all of your Plusnet email address(es) by going to manage my mail at https://plus.net/email
  3. Your account is terminated
  4. Plusnet resurrect the account as email only
  5. Plusnet will restore the default mailbox - you might need to change the name before the @ symbol to what you had before
  6. You recreate any secondary email address(es) and then request that their contents are restored
  7. Plusnet restore the secondary mailbox(es) content

Everything should then work as it did previously, however please note that emails sent to the email address(es) between the account being closed and the email addresses being recreated might...

  1. Be returned to the sender as un-routable (no such domain)
  2. Be returned to the sender as undelivered (no such addressee)
  3. All be delivered to the default mailbox if catch-all is enabled

 

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

Gandalf
Community Gaffer
Community Gaffer
Posts: 26,563
Thanks: 10,265
Fixes: 1,599
Registered: ‎21-04-2017

Re: Keeping mail domain after leaving PN

Hi @norush I recognise you've said that you're now not wanting to keep your email address as you're moving on to a different one, but I was wondering whether you'd be happy to be a guinea pig for me so to speak.

Some background, at the moment the process of keeping your emails after leaving us is entirely manual, but I'm looking at seeing if a particular system functionality works where if we click a button, this happens automatically. 

What I'd like to try on your account is to test this out to see if it does work as it should do but if it doesn't then I can look at raising this with the relevant team to fix although I can't guarantee either way I'd be successful.

Also this may go wrong and your emails may be lost forever without recovery so I thought I'd ask first. 

Let me know if you'd be happy for me to go ahead. Thanks in advance.

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
norush
Grafter
Posts: 42
Thanks: 6
Registered: ‎18-10-2016

Re: Keeping mail domain after leaving PN

Thanks Anoush, I appreciate the gesture, but I no longer have any requirements for a PN email address so you'll have to find another guinea pig!