keeping my email address

[lankeela]

Have just switched to Talk Talk from BT for Broadband, BT have now written to say that I will lose my BT email address after 90 days if I don't use their dial up service. What do I have to do - I don't know how to use the dial up - when I turn pc on it automatically goes to the broadband. Help - I need to keep the same email address!

[MarkRae]

Do yourself a huge favour and get an ISP-independent email address, then email all your contacts telling them what it is...

[Buenchico]

Mark has suggested the only viable solution. To use dial-up you'd first need a suitable modem. At one time nearly all new computers were supplied with a 56K modem installed but newer computers often omit this feature, simply because most people won't need it. So you'd have to buy a modem. Then you'd have to pay (on top of your TalkTalk charges) for an additional (slow) internet connection which you'd hardly use.

Get an ISPindependent email account. (If you use a TalkTalk email address you'll only have the same problem again when you come to realise, as many people do, that TalkTalk is rubbish). The most popular service is Google's Gmail but I prefer Gawab. See paragraph 3, et seq, of my (first) post here for instructions on setting up a Gawab account:
http://www.theanswerb...t/Question407429.html

Chris

[alavahalf]

Had the same problem when I switched from Tiscali a couple of months ago ....
I followed Buenchico's advice re. Gawab, and have'nt looked back since.
Cheers Chris.

Sorry to hear about your situation with your providers BT to TalkTalk... a bit like the frying pan and the fire.

[VHG]

I have a Virgin broadband service and all my family have Virgin email addresses.

I realised about a year ago that linking myself so closely to Virgin was a BAD IDEA as if I ever left Virgin I would lose my email address and all the web sites and newsletters I subscribe to would go to my Virgin email (which would no longer exist).

So I set up a Googlemail address and gradually moved all my sign-ons and subscriptions to this Googlemail address.

I must admit it took me AGES as I did not realise I have so many logons and subscriptions to web sites (tesco, nectar, amazon, BBC, and so on), it must have been about 60 web sites.

Every time I got an email to my Virgin email account I would log on to the web site and change it to my Google account.

But even though I have been doiong it for a year I STILL get emails to my Virgin email account, ones I had forgotten about, so it is a good idea start this move MONTHS before you ever want to change ISP.

[lankeela]

Ok thanks Chris, you are a star. I have created a new gawab email address, but cannot seem to import my contacts from outlook express. It says go to the address book and click 'import contacts' but it doesn't say that anywhere. Any ideas?

[Buenchico]

Thanks for the reply.

I'm actually rather confused by your post. If you're were using Outlook Express with BT, and you're now using it with Gawab, your contacts should still be exactly where they always were. You've no need to import them from anywhere.

While you've got two (or more) active accounts with Outlook Express, clicking 'Create mail' will automatically fill in your default email address in the 'From' field. If you want to change to a different outgoing address, simply click in the 'From' box and select from the drop-down menu. Whichever address you use though, your contacts list will still be available for you to use as normal, since it's completely unrelated to any particular account.

If I've misunderstood your problem, please post again (with a bit more detail about your problem) and I'll try to help again.

Chris

[lankeela]

Ok, I'll try to explain what I think. I have now got the gawab email and when I log in to it to read or send emails on the left is a list and one is address book. This was empty and as people are replying to my emails telling them of the new address I am clicking to add them to the address book. On the gawab site it said I could import my contacts by clicking on import contacts, but nowhere does it say that. I can still go to my contacts list on the OE site for the time being but when I lose the BT address I don't know what will happen. Or have I got this totally wrong? (Probably). Also yesterday it stopped allowing me to receive incoming mails as it said I had exceeded my limits, and people were getting their mails returned, but today it seems ok again.

[Buenchico]

You've got me confused again!

Outlook Express isn't a 'site' (as you refer to it in your post). It's a program which allows you to access ANY email service which uses 'POP3'. (All ISP-based email services use POP3, as do the services provided by Gmail and Gawab, but most other free web-based services don't).

If you've not already done so, open Outlook Express and carefully follow the instruction provided in the final paragraph of my first post from the link above.

Then, in future, you'll never need to visit the Gawab site again in order to send or receive email. Simply open Outlook Express and use it in exactly the same way as you would with your BT address. Your contacts list in Outlook Express is completely independent of any particular mail service. It won't disappear when your BT address expires and you can use that existing list with your Gawab address.

When you're away from your home PC (and so can't use Outlook Express) you can still access your mail via the Gawab site, but it's completely unnecessary for 'day to day' use.

Once again, if you're still not certain about something, just ask me and I'll try to explain.

Chris

[lankeela]

Chris I want to have your babies.