Hands-On Tech 273 Transcript
Please be advised that this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word-for-word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-free version of the show.
Mikah Sargent [00:00:00]:
Coming up on Hands-On Tech. Yes, it's a common question. I am using email from my ISP, but I live in the year 2026, so it's time to move on. If this sounds like you, well, stay tuned for this episode of Hands-On Tech. Hello and welcome to Hands-On Tech. I am Mikah Sargent and today we're taking your tech questions and answering them. hot@twit.tv is how you get in touch with me.
Mikah Sargent [00:00:35]:
And today's question is one that is near and dear to my heart because it is something that I have helped so many family members navigate and something that I'm always proud of them for making the choice to do. Eleanor has written in with the following. She says, dear Mikah, I've had the same email address from my Internet provider for close to 20 years and we're finally switching companies for a better deal. I just realized that if I drop the old service, I lose the email address too. And it's tied to basically everything, my bank, my doctor, my online shopping. I'm a little panicked. How do I move to an email address that won't disappear on me again? And how do I switch everything over without locking myself out of important accounts? Eleanor from Burlington. From Eleanor, first of all, I want to just say that it's very valid, you know, that that feeling of panic that you have, I would be a little stressed about it too.
Mikah Sargent [00:01:31]:
Moving to a new email is frankly a little bit frightening when it's at the heart, at the core of what you're doing. And so first understand, take a deep breath, you're not in crisis. This is simply migration. And you can do this if you do it in order. Kind of the important thing to understand is that you didn't pick the wrong provider. But tying your identity to an address that you don't actually own, that is the place that we're kind of examining today. And that is something that frankly, is a little difficult to navigate on the web because so many of the options that are available to us are not ours. And even some of the options that are more ours are still not ours because if those services go down, then they're gone.
Mikah Sargent [00:02:26]:
And we don't, we don't have the same control that we once did. So it can be very difficult to truly get something that you feel is yours and can move with you. But we can make it a little bit easier than these sort of behind the scenes perks that ISPs have provided in the past. Don't cancel anything yet is an important step. Some Providers will let you keep the email address even after you leave the service. This is occasionally free. Sometimes it does cost a small monthly fee. So go ahead and call and ask.
Mikah Sargent [00:03:01]:
I would recommend that when you call and ask, we don't talk about switching. They're going to turn that into a marketing call very easily and very quickly and maybe not be as helpful. And so you would want to know more about what the deal is when it comes to the stability of this number of this email. The you know, what would happen if I were to switch carriers. And you know, if you can sort of couch it in something that makes it less about leaving and more about just wanting to know, that's probably going to make things a little bit faster. But in any case, they should answer your questions. And what you do when you call before you ask is it does give you that little safety net during the transition. Obviously it's an address that no Internet company can ever take away.
Mikah Sargent [00:03:49]:
That's the goal, right? That's what we want. And so once you've called, you figured that out before you've made the switch because you don't want to do this and then not have access to the account. So slow down, let's do this first. Let's start by picking. We're going to go with a free option or a paid option. And this is all up to you. This is why I'm providing you multiple options here. I use almost all of these separately and for different reasons.
Mikah Sargent [00:04:22]:
So it's ultimately up to you what you want to do. All right, here we go. There's Gmail now of course owned by a big company. You don't have access. You have more access than you do typically with an isp. But again, if Google goes away, then so does your email account. But still that's going to be the case with any of these online services. But Gmail, it's very universal.
Mikah Sargent [00:04:45]:
You get a lot of storage space. If you live in kind of the Office and Windows Suite and software, then Outlook.com is a good bet for you. Icloud mail, if you are an Apple household, you may already have an icloud email set up. ProtonMail, that's if you are really privacy focused and you are wanting to have end to end encrypted messages. And then fastmail, it's been a sponsor on the network. It is one of the services that I use. It is paid. You don't have ads.
Mikah Sargent [00:05:15]:
If you want a custom domain, this is a great way to do it. And fast mail also gives you so much control over your email. I have a free Gmail address, I have a paid Gmail address, I have a work Gmail address. I have a free but now paid because I have a Microsoft 365 subscription. Outlook email, I have multiple icloud emails, and I have multiple fast mail emails. The only one that I don't use is ProtonMail from this list. And so I've tried them all. And I know that these companies are robust.
Mikah Sargent [00:05:57]:
And obviously, I mean, you've got Microsoft, Google, Slash, Alphabet, Apple, and then focused email provider Fast Mail. All are great options if you want the ultimate insurance policy. Register your own domain, okay? And then put your mail on it. So that's a way that you can go with fast mail, for example, and then that way you can change providers forever without having to change your address. But honestly, for most folks, one of the free options above is going to be plenty for them and in this case, perhaps for you. Eleanor. So you have picked an address. Now you've gone.
Mikah Sargent [00:06:35]:
Let's just say you know the simple answer, Google. So you've got eleanor.emailmail.com right? And good for you. That's a great email that you got. Now we need to figure out how to move email from the before to the now. And so you want to set up what's called forwarding. And then you also want to import the mail that you already have. Somewhere in your ISP's email account settings there will be a forwarding option. And what that will do is it makes it so that all of the email that gets sent to that account properly gets forwarded and sent to your new account.
Mikah Sargent [00:07:19]:
Most new providers like Gmail can also import old messages and contacts during setup so that your history comes along. So look for that as you're going through the setup with Gmail or Outlook or what have you, if there's an import option. And a lot of times that's just kind of using the email system to forward along those messages from the old system to the new one automatically. And then from that point forward, email forwards where it goes to that account and then comes to you afterward. It's important to go in to your various accounts and update them in priority order. And look, it's tough and it's going to take a while, but it's worth it so that you're not stuck in this situation ever again. Understandably, this is where people get overwhelmed. So it's best to kind of do it, I think, by risk factor instead of just going down the list alphabetically.
Mikah Sargent [00:08:17]:
First, your recovery email and Your two factor settings that are on your most important accounts, you need to fix these. So whether that is, you know, it doesn't matter that whatever it happens to be. If you have your recovery email set to your ISP, Eleanor emailsp.net then you need to get that updated to eleanoremail@email.com after you've done the recovery email and the two factor stuff, then do any banks, brokerage firms, anything financial, then do doctor pharmacy insurance and then you can get to the shopping, the streaming, the social. And you could do that over the course of a few weeks. Right. You don't need to speed to get those done. So it can feel overwhelming if you're going down the list and needing to just zoom, zoom through it. But if you pick those by priority, you get the hard ones out of the way and then you can kind of take your time with others.
Mikah Sargent [00:09:12]:
Lastly, most importantly, I call it watch and retire, because you need to leave that old address forwarding for at least 30 days. Pay attention to what's still going there. So you know the accounts that you forgot to do. And then once the old inbox goes quiet, no more email coming through to that old inbox, then you know, you can let it go. So bottom line for you, Eleanor, get a mailbox that you own, forward everything, change your recovery and banking logins first, and then give it a month before you cut the cord. Do it once carefully, and then you'll never have to do it again. It is something that I've seen so many people go through, so I completely understand the concerns therein. It's, it's, it is a complicated set of steps to take and I think that's why a lot of people don't end up doing it until they're faced with, oh, I want to change ISPs, or the ISP is no longer offering this for free.
Mikah Sargent [00:10:12]:
Yeah, I have a few family members. Their emails were like something @sbcglobal.net and well, frankly, we got to move us to more modern platforms. So I wish you the best of luck, Eleanor. And yeah, I wish best of luck to anybody out there who's making this switch that is going to bring us to the end of this episode of Hands-On Tech. Of course you can email me. hot@twit.tv is how you get in touch and I'll be back next week with another episode. Bye bye.
