How to change ISP but keep email address?

[MrLonzo]

I’d really like to ditch Spectrum as my ISP, but I’m afraid I’ll lose my email address. My email address was set up under the old Roadrunner domain in San Diego (e.g., xxxxx@san.rr.com) when it was part of Time Warner cable about 25 years ago. Even today, it remains my main email address when Spectrum absorbed the roadrunner brand from Time Warner.

I found the following article which suggests Roadrunner can act independently of Spectrum: Is Roadrunner Owned by Spectrum? A closer look at the partnership between these internet service providers (https://thetechylife.com/is-roadrunner-owned-by-spectrum/). But elsewhere, I’ve found that Roadrunner is defunct.

I’m trying to determine if I drop Spectrum, is there any way I can keep my email address? If not, is there some way to have my messages re-routed to a new email address under a new ISP? I have hundreds of accounts set up using my roadrunner email – it would be a nightmare trying to change them all.

[Pugchief]

Good lesson of why no one should ever use their ISPs email as their primary.

To answer your question, it depends on the provider. I had an old sbcglobal email address when I had AT&T 20 years ago. I can still access that account with no issue, but other ISPs may have other policies.

Unless you know for sure your provider will let you access the email address indefinitely, my advice would be to get a new email with Gmail, Yahoo, MS, or whomever and log in to your ~30 most important accounts and notify them of the change before you fully switch. I've done this, and it's time consuming but not that bad.

[CarlR33]

Spectrum may allow you to keep the email for a specified time after you disconnect as they did with us last year but I don’t remember how long (maybe 6 weeks). As others have said ditch the specific use of providers and go with gmail, yahoo, or others.

[bopat]

My roadrunner email still receives email, and I use thunderbird to manage it. Can’t send roadrunner email though. Probably because I’m not in their ip address pool anymore. @nycap.rr.com email. It’s been 2 years.

[jrref]

I know Comcast will let you keep your e-mail as long as you use it every couple of months. (I don't remember the interval but you can look it up).

As most have said, if you want to move to a different ISP, get Gmail or any other non-ISP email and slowly move over all your contacts. You will have a grace period before they turn it Off to make sure you got everyone on your contact list.

I know someone that uses the same e-mail for a business and they are stuck.

Also consider what happens if you move somewhere in the future and ther is no Sprectrum?

[JRcorvette]

There are several “pay” emails services that are very secure and no spam mail like you get on Gmail (I hate that).
1. Start mail.com
2. Protonmail.com. (Free and pay options).

[PoolBrews]

Agree with multiple comments here. Do the following in the listed order:

1) Get a new email independent of any ISP (gmail, outlook, yahoo).
2) Set up your current email to forward all received emails to your new email. (all email accounts can do this).
3) Change all accounts that use your old email to your new email.
4) Once that's in place for a time and all accounts are moved over, you can turn off the forwarding. (Forwarding will forward everything - including spam)

I personally like outlook email. I've had a gmail account for the past 10-15 years, but I don't like the way they save all emails in a separate hidden ALL folder forever even if you delete from the inbox. I recently added an outlook email, and like the way the backend systems handle email.

You can still use your favorite front end to access any of standard email providers.

[retiredguy123]

Agree with multiple comments here. Do the following in the listed order:

1) Get a new email independent of any ISP (gmail, outlook, yahoo).
2) Set up your current email to forward all received emails to your new email. (all email accounts can do this).
3) Change all accounts that use your old email to your new email.
4) Once that's in place for a time and all accounts are moved over, you can turn off the forwarding. (Forwarding will forward everything - including spam)

I personally like outlook email. I've had a gmail account for the past 10-15 years, but I don't like the way they save all emails in a separate hidden ALL folder forever even if you delete from the inbox. I recently added an outlook email, and like the way the backend systems handle email.

You can still use your favorite front end to access any of standard email providers.
I agree. I would just add that most email apps will allow you to have multiple email accounts listed in the accounts section of the app.

[OrangeBlossomBaby]

Good lesson of why no one should ever use their ISPs email as their primary.

To answer your question, it depends on the provider. I had an old sbcglobal email address when I had AT&T 20 years ago. I can still access that account with no issue, but other ISPs may have other policies.

Unless you know for sure your provider will let you access the email address indefinitely, my advice would be to get a new email with Gmail, Yahoo, MS, or whomever and log in to your ~30 most important accounts and notify them of the change before you fully switch. I've done this, and it's time consuming but not that bad.

I had an SNET e-mail I got before SBC and then AT&T bought the company out. I used it for many years. Until we all got notice from AT&T that they were discontinuing all SNET.net e-mail accounts.

It's gone forever. Glad we were given enough notice to forward out e-mails to another service, and thankful I already had a few other e-mail addresses available to forward them to.

But I use mostly gmail now. It's easy to use, it syncronizes with all my other apps and calendars, I can have multiple e-mail addresses including anonymous e-mails that are linked to my main, OR completely different ones, each with a different account. And I can see them all at the same time, or one at a time, simply by accessing the GMail app on my phone or computer.

[OrangeBlossomBaby]

Agree with multiple comments here. Do the following in the listed order:

1) Get a new email independent of any ISP (gmail, outlook, yahoo).
2) Set up your current email to forward all received emails to your new email. (all email accounts can do this).
3) Change all accounts that use your old email to your new email.
4) Once that's in place for a time and all accounts are moved over, you can turn off the forwarding. (Forwarding will forward everything - including spam)

I personally like outlook email. I've had a gmail account for the past 10-15 years, but I don't like the way they save all emails in a separate hidden ALL folder forever even if you delete from the inbox. I recently added an outlook email, and like the way the backend systems handle email.

You can still use your favorite front end to access any of standard email providers.

Gmail doesn't come with a hidden "all" folder. It comes with an "all" folder that isn't hidden, but you can create a hidden one if you want.

The all folder will keep all your spam and trash e-mails until you empty your spam and trash mailbox. That's all you have to do, to empty that out. It takes seconds. If you're on a computer, mouse over the "trash" category, and the trash-bin icon will appear. Click it, and hit "yes" when it asks if you're sure you want to empty the trash bin. Within moments, it'll be empty. For spam, I -believe- it sends all those to trash, at which point you still have to empty the trash bin.

[PoolBrews]

Gmail doesn't come with a hidden "all" folder. It comes with an "all" folder that isn't hidden, but you can create a hidden one if you want.

The all folder will keep all your spam and trash e-mails until you empty your spam and trash mailbox. That's all you have to do, to empty that out. It takes seconds. If you're on a computer, mouse over the "trash" category, and the trash-bin icon will appear. Click it, and hit "yes" when it asks if you're sure you want to empty the trash bin. Within moments, it'll be empty. For spam, I -believe- it sends all those to trash, at which point you still have to empty the trash bin.

To clarify - while the All Mail folder is not hidden in the gmail app, it is hidden in all other front ends. If you use Thunderbird, Outlook, or any other POP or iMap app, the All Mail folder does not appear. Deleting items from the inbox in any of these apps does not remove it from the All Mail folder.

Using anything other than the standard gmail interface (which is terrible for ease of use), you need to take special steps to actually view it. Items placed in your trash remain in the All Mail folder forever, which is why storage used continues to grow even when you clean up your trash. To completely remove items and reduce storage when using any of these apps, you need to unhide the folder, and then you need to delete from both your inbox and the "forever" folder.

[Bill14564]

To clarify - while the All Mail folder is not hidden in the gmail app, it is hidden in all other front ends. If you use Thunderbird, Outlook, or any other POP or iMap app, the All Mail folder does not appear. Deleting items from the inbox in any of these apps does not remove it from the All Mail folder.

Using anything other than the standard gmail interface (which is terrible for ease of use), you need to take special steps to actually view it. Items placed in your trash remain in the All Mail folder forever, which is why storage used continues to grow even when you clean up your trash. To completely remove items and reduce storage when using any of these apps, you need to unhide the folder, and then you need to delete from both your inbox and the "forever" folder.

I use Thunderbird and the Apple mail app and the “all mail” folder sits right there, easily found in both.

The “Delete” button is usually configurable in mail tools. It can move mail to the Trash folder or it can be set to remove the message from the Inbox while leaving it in the Archive / “All mail” folder. If you want to truly delete it then make sure you configure the button that way.

Google and/or Thunderbird can be configured to move messages from Junk/Spam to Trash after 30 days and to permanently delete messages that have been in Trash for 30 days. Look for this in the settings for each tool.

[Pugchief]

If you use Thunderbird, Outlook, or any other POP or iMap app, the All Mail folder does not appear.

Why would you need to use an app? Gmail works great in a browser tab. Those apps maybe made sense when the web interface was awful, but unnecessary these days.

I do still use 8-track tapes though.....

[daniel200]

To clarify - while the All Mail folder is not hidden in the gmail app, it is hidden in all other front ends. If you use Thunderbird, Outlook, or any other POP or iMap app, the All Mail folder does not appear. Deleting items from the inbox in any of these apps does not remove it from the All Mail folder.

Using anything other than the standard gmail interface (which is terrible for ease of use), you need to take special steps to actually view it. Items placed in your trash remain in the All Mail folder forever, which is why storage used continues to grow even when you clean up your trash. To completely remove items and reduce storage when using any of these apps, you need to unhide the folder, and then you need to delete from both your inbox and the "forever" folder.

I use outlook on my iphone and ipad to access my gmail. The top folder is “All Mail” … which consolidates all my mail accounts in one folder.

[daniel200]

Why would you need to use an app? Gmail works great in a browser tab. Those apps maybe made sense when the web interface was awful, but unnecessary these days.

I do still use 8-track tapes though.....

I do have gmail accounts. And some old legacy non gmail accounts that I keep. Outlook works great on my ipad and iphone and easily consolidates all my email accounts. I much prefer outlook on these devices to google’s app.

[Sully2023]

I’d really like to ditch Spectrum as my ISP, but I’m afraid I’ll lose my email address. My email address was set up under the old Roadrunner domain in San Diego (e.g., xxxxx@san.rr.com) when it was part of Time Warner cable about 25 years ago. Even today, it remains my main email address when Spectrum absorbed the roadrunner brand from Time Warner.

I found the following article which suggests Roadrunner can act independently of Spectrum: Is Roadrunner Owned by Spectrum? A closer look at the partnership between these internet service providers (https://thetechylife.com/is-roadrunner-owned-by-spectrum/). But elsewhere, I’ve found that Roadrunner is defunct.

I’m trying to determine if I drop Spectrum, is there any way I can keep my email address? If not, is there some way to have my messages re-routed to a new email address under a new ISP? I have hundreds of accounts set up using my roadrunner email – it would be a nightmare trying to change them all.

I changed providers five times in the last 15 years. Never had an issue with my email address.

[oneclickplus]

I’d really like to ditch Spectrum as my ISP, but I’m afraid I’ll lose my email address. My email address was set up under the old Roadrunner domain in San Diego (e.g., xxxxx@san.rr.com) when it was part of Time Warner cable about 25 years ago. Even today, it remains my main email address when Spectrum absorbed the roadrunner brand from Time Warner.

I found the following article which suggests Roadrunner can act independently of Spectrum: Is Roadrunner Owned by Spectrum? A closer look at the partnership between these internet service providers (https://thetechylife.com/is-roadrunner-owned-by-spectrum/). But elsewhere, I’ve found that Roadrunner is defunct.

I’m trying to determine if I drop Spectrum, is there any way I can keep my email address? If not, is there some way to have my messages re-routed to a new email address under a new ISP? I have hundreds of accounts set up using my roadrunner email – it would be a nightmare trying to change them all.

Well, unfortunately, you've learned the hard way that free email from your internet provider is not free. It was originally designed as a set of handcuffs to discourage customers from moving to a new ISP. Customers thinking of switching would realize "oh wait, I can't lose my email" and then continue to pay higher and higher fees to their current ISP to avoid the headache you clearly see if you change email address. This is not unlike the problem of getting a new phone number. Then, the Local Number Portability (LNP) act was established to solve that issue. Remember when you paid roaming fees when your cell phone was even 100 miles from home. Now, no one changes their phone number no matter where they go. We need the same thing with email addresses but that's harder to do with different domain names owned by different entities.

Your only option is to check with spectrum. You might be able to keep your current email address. Some ISP's (comcast) will let you keep your email even if you leave provided that you login at some frequency (once a month minimum I think). But, a quick google search seems to indicate that if you cancel Spectrum, you lose any affiliated road runner email address within 60 days.

If you are forced to get a new email, don't make the same mistake again. Choose a new neutral email domain (yahoo, hotmail, gmail, etc) or even get your own domain for email and have it hosted. MrLonzo.com is not yet registered <smile> so you could establish one or more email addresses at <anything>@mrlonzo.com.

[Emkay56]

We also dropped Spectrum but kept our roadrunner email for quote some time. Finally switched to Gmail and I believe there was a way to forward all the road runner emails to our Gmail account. It was so long ago, I don't remember.... sorry. I think if you go into your RR account, there is a tab or header that will say "forward mail to...."
I’d really like to ditch Spectrum as my ISP, but I’m afraid I’ll lose my email address. My email address was set up under the old Roadrunner domain in San Diego (e.g., xxxxx@san.rr.com) when it was part of Time Warner cable about 25 years ago. Even today, it remains my main email address when Spectrum absorbed the roadrunner brand from Time Warner.

I found the following article which suggests Roadrunner can act independently of Spectrum: Is Roadrunner Owned by Spectrum? A closer look at the partnership between these internet service providers (https://thetechylife.com/is-roadrunner-owned-by-spectrum/). But elsewhere, I’ve found that Roadrunner is defunct.

I’m trying to determine if I drop Spectrum, is there any way I can keep my email address? If not, is there some way to have my messages re-routed to a new email address under a new ISP? I have hundreds of accounts set up using my roadrunner email – it would be a nightmare trying to change them all.

[rsmurano]

I never use an isp email address because you can switch isp every year. My email address is 20+ years old but I only use this for friends. I have 167 aliases that are tied to specific sites so when I’m done with them, I delete the alias. Apple, msn, google aren’t going anywhere so I would use addresses from these companies. You can go out to each 1 of these sites and forward all emails to your main email address.
The other thing I do is setup multiple accounts for email, using the sites incoming email server, port, etc, but the outgoing server is pointing to my main email address.

If you are using an isp email that is still active even if you don’t use them, then I would forward all emails from these isp sites to your main email address

[OrangeBlossomBaby]

To clarify - while the All Mail folder is not hidden in the gmail app, it is hidden in all other front ends. If you use Thunderbird, Outlook, or any other POP or iMap app, the All Mail folder does not appear. Deleting items from the inbox in any of these apps does not remove it from the All Mail folder.

Using anything other than the standard gmail interface (which is terrible for ease of use), you need to take special steps to actually view it. Items placed in your trash remain in the All Mail folder forever, which is why storage used continues to grow even when you clean up your trash. To completely remove items and reduce storage when using any of these apps, you need to unhide the folder, and then you need to delete from both your inbox and the "forever" folder.

Well that's a limitation of the choices you've made, not with GMail. Gmail interface is insanely easy to use, uncomplicated, and multi-functional. I use GMail via my Firefox web browser, or my Google web browser. I rarely use the app on my phone since I can't type out long replies with my phone (I'm a keyboarder, not a texter).

[J1ceasar]

You can also set auto reply to tell everyone about your new email which is a lot less work

[TVTVTV]

I never use an isp email address because you can switch isp every year. My email address is 20+ years old but I only use this for friends. I have 167 aliases that are tied to specific sites so when I’m done with them, I delete the alias. Apple, msn, google aren’t going anywhere so I would use addresses from these companies. You can go out to each 1 of these sites and forward all emails to your main email address.
The other thing I do is setup multiple accounts for email, using the sites incoming email server, port, etc, but the outgoing server is pointing to my main email address.

If you are using an isp email that is still active even if you don’t use them, then I would forward all emails from these isp sites to your main email address

Impressive sleuthing!!

[xlhig]

I’d really like to ditch Spectrum as my ISP, but I’m afraid I’ll lose my email address. My email address was set up under the old Roadrunner domain in San Diego (e.g., xxxxx@san.rr.com) when it was part of Time Warner cable about 25 years ago. Even today, it remains my main email address when Spectrum absorbed the roadrunner brand from Time Warner.

I found the following article which suggests Roadrunner can act independently of Spectrum: Is Roadrunner Owned by Spectrum? A closer look at the partnership between these internet service providers (https://thetechylife.com/is-roadrunner-owned-by-spectrum/). But elsewhere, I’ve found that Roadrunner is defunct.

I’m trying to determine if I drop Spectrum, is there any way I can keep my email address? If not, is there some way to have my messages re-routed to a new email address under a new ISP? I have hundreds of accounts set up using my roadrunner email – it would be a nightmare trying to change them all.

I had Roadrunner over 20 years ago and switched to various other companies over the years. But my RR email address still exists and still works,