I have two email addresses. A friend of mine is my webmaster and I pay him a
certain sum of money per year for this service he provides me. Unfortunately
Iâm dependent on his whims and fancies, so I want to use a free provider. I
have several questions:
-
Can I keep the same e-mail address if i discontinue with this friends
services? -
Are there any other free e-mail service providers that will allow me to keep
the same e-mail addresses that I have now? -
Currently I have two e-mail addresses, but my friend and webmaster has fixed
it so that I only have to open one of these addresses to access emails sent to
both the addresses. If I have another email provider or webmaster will I get
this same service? -
Is it possible to have my own website at some later time with the same
address?
My friend originally offered to get me an e-mail address with my company
name, offered to maintain it for me for a small fee per year. Now he wants me
to pay more for increasing capacity. He also did some tweaks as he called it
and lost some of my mail. I was at his mercy to get things in order so I decided I
want to move to another provider. Unfortunately I cannot move on if I cannot
keep these e-mail addresses.
This all sounds very, very familiar. You see, I play the role of your friend
for a few people as well.
What youâre attempting to do could be easy, or it could be next to
impossible. It depends a little on your friendâs willingness to let go and a
lot on just who owns what.
We need to start by reviewing just how email addresses work and how theyâre
related to the domain names they use.
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As you probably already realize, an email address is comprised of two parts:
the email name and the domain name. If my email address is leo@example.com,
then the domain name is âexample.comâ and the email name is âleoâ.
How âleo@example.comâ comes into existence and becomes a working email
address involves several steps and concepts that weâre going to look at
individually.
Domain Name Registration
Domain names are purchased, or more properly âregisteredâ, by individuals or
companies. Domain name registrars are the keepers of the ownership records and
the companies you pay to register a domain. Technically âleasedâ might actually
be an even better term since they do need to be renewed and paid for on an
ongoing basis.
So, for example, I own the domain âask-leo.comâ. I registered it through the
registrar SimpleURL,
though a registrar youâre more likely to recognize might be GoDaddy because of their frequent
advertising.
Since you donât mention owning your domain, Iâm going to assume that your
friend probably did this for you and that he, in fact, owns it.
Owning a domain is only a start.
DNS: the Domain Name System
Once you own a domain, you need to be able to tell the world where to go
when they need to do something that references that domain. Thatâs what DNS is
all about.
Thereâs more, of course, but for our purposes when you own a domain name
there are a couple of important bits of information that you specify in
DNS:
-
The IP address of the web server hosting the website for that domain.
-
The name of the mail server responsible for processing all email sent to
that domain.
own internet domain.â
Both are optional; you can have domain with a website but no email, or email
without a website. And the website and email donât need to be handled on the
same server.
In most cases when you purchase a domain the registrar will also provide you
with DNS services, but itâs not required. In fact, aside from your registration
information, the only information that your registrar is required to provide is
the location of the DNS servers that will contain the reference information
about your domain. Those DNS servers could be somewhere else entirely. For
example, while Iâve registered ask-leo.com through SimpleURL, who do provide DNS
services, Iâve elected to have my DNS managed by servers at Rackspace, where the servers are
actually located.
Once again, Iâm going to assume that your friend is handling all of this for
you as well.
Once you own a domain and have configured DNS so that email is sent to
a particular mail server, then itâs time to configure your mail.
Email Services
This gets a little more vague because there are so many possible options
here.
Iâll start at the extreme end: running your own mail server, as I do. Mail
sent to the domains I own is processed by my own mail server. In many ways I am
my own ISP. That means Iâm responsible for creating email accounts and making
sure that everything is set up on the server to process the email that gets
directed at it. In other words, the mail server has to âknowâ that itâs
supposed to process email for âask-leo.comâ. It also has to know what email
addresses are valid and what to do with the email messages that come in. When I
download email to my email program, I do so by downloading directly from my own
email server.
Iâm guessing that this is exactly what your friend is doing. Running an
email server of his own that is configured to receive and process email for the
domain on which your email names reside.
The other extreme goes all the way back to your registrar. In addition to
providing DNS services, many registrars also provide simple email services.
Some provide actual email accounts from which you can directly download your
email, while others provide âforwardingâ accounts which automatically forward
email to some other email address completely.
Iâm hoping, in the long run, that you may be able to take advantage of
something like that.
What to do?
With all that as background, we can now describe what needs to happen for
you to move your email address to another provider.
-
Ideally, you need to own your domain. By this I mean that
if your email address is âyou@example.comâ, you want to own the domain
âexample.comâ. This is why youâd never be able to move email addresses that are
provided by your ISP or other services. Youâll never own âhotmail.comâ or
âsbcglobal.comâ and the like. True email portability is only possible if you
own your own internet domain.If your friend currently owns your domain, then you would want to negotiate
with him a transfer of ownership. It can be a little complicated so people
canât go stealing domain registrations, but it is possible and it does happen
all the time. -
Alternately, you need to keep your friend. If he canât or
wonât transfer ownership of the domain to you, then heâll need to make the
changes youâll want. For as long as he owns it and you want to keep using
it. -
Determine if your registrar provides email forwarding. As I
said, many if not most do, though occasionally for an extra charge. If they
do not, it might be easiest to change registrars. Much like ownership transfer,
changing registrars can be a little painful up-front to prevent theft, but itâs
also done all the time. -
Get yourself an email account on another service. I know
you want free, in which case Iâd recommend Gmail, but I also tend to recommend against free email
services in general, preferring paid email services
that offer better support. -
Configure that email account to send âfromâ your domainâs email
account. For example, letâs say you got an address âyou@gmail.comâ.
You would configure Gmail, or your email
program, to download from that address, and send using that service, but
with your âFrom:â address filled in as âyou@yourowndomain.comâ. -
Configure email forwarding. At whatever service is
providing your email forwarding, hopefully your registrar, you would simply
indicate that all email sent to âyou@yourdomain.comâ get forwarded to
âyou@gmail.comâ. Chances are theyâll allow you to configure multiple email
addresses this way.
The beauty of this setup is that you can change where you really get your
email without having to tell everyone you have a new email address. People send
you email at âyou@yourdomain.comâ, and if you decide youâd rather use Hotmail
than Gmail, you simply create a Hotmail account, change the forwarding, and no
one need know the difference.
And to answer your final question: yes, if you own your own domain you can
absolutely set up a web site on it at any time.
Ultimately everything boils down to your ability to make the necessary
changes to your domainâs configuration including both DNS and email forwarding.
Whether by proxy, perhaps using your friend or someone else to help with the
technical details, or directly, itâs something that youâll need to be able to
do.
If your friend owns the domain, and is on a power-trip, and is somewhat uncooperative, you may want to also consider a phased transition.
To do that, you simply maintain current operations as your friend has set them up, but at the same time, you launch a second mirror of your website at a new domain.
Gradually over time, you would advise all your current clients about your new email address, and new URL for your website.
Slowly, your new website will gain popularity, ranking, and most of your current clients will come to know about the new domain.
And then when you are satisfied with the level of traffic and business you are getting from your new website and email addresses, you can then cut relations with your so called âfriendâ, and terminate operations within the older domain.
Iâve just bought myself a new domain for my family to use (although Iâm sure my wife wonât being something of a techno-Luddite), and discovered Google Apps. This allows you to do all the things above using a brand-new domain name â FREE! Itâs true, itâs free. So I now have my own email address pointing to my own domain, I can set up webpages, etc etc. OK, Iâm in the âfreeâ world â and I know you recommend against it Leo â and also in the Google sphere of influence, but nevertheless, wow. Easy to set up and itâs cost me all of US$40 for a 2-year domain name registration. I would definitely recommend your question-asker to check out Google Apps. It could be the answer s/heâs looking for, and also allows phased transitioning like Jack Gannon recommends â and a good recommendation it is too!
I want to go for google apps, but see this infoâ Please verify that you own XXXXXXXX.com
To start using Google Apps services, you will need to verify ownership of the domain. You can do this later, if you like.
Verify your domain ownership
We offer two methods of verification. You can either upload an HTML file with a name we specify, or you can change the CNAME record for your domain using the values we specify. Choose your preferred method below.
I am not sure what this means. could you help me please!
My case is the same as this person mentioned. I am unable to collect information from my friend. However I have the user name and password for the administrator account. I donât know how to proceed further
Hi,
Itâs my understanding that Google Apps will actually allow you to keep your current email address (name & domain). Although Google Apps includes services other than email, youâre not required to use these additional services. But it might be a better solution to see if your current ISP (in your case, through your friend) will allow email forwarding.
Good luckâŠ
Thanks for the information! This has helped me solve a work around solution for a similar situation. What Iâve been putting off for a year, took me 5 minutes to fix. Thanks again!!
Iâve been using myway as my email provider for sseveral years. Recently I was surprised to see that I canât get to my email on my laptop. When on the MyWay homepage, and click email, it directs me to âBlueTieâ email provider. I want to return to my original MyWay email provider. I havenât been able to get rid of the BlueTie site. Can you help please?
I would like to keep my same email address no one change my password I did I put the wrong password in my mistake thati had wrote so I donât want to change anything I want to have the same email if I can because I would loose everything on Facebook and I got to start all over again
Hi, Iâm presently at war with my ISP and about to chuck all their services. How do I move my emails and sub accounts to a new ISP?? I donât mind changing email addresses, but Iâd prefer not to lose all my email history.
Thanks for any suggestion,
Pat
@Pat
An email program like Thunderbird or Outlook can download all of your emails to your computer. Or you can open a GMail account or other email account with an email collector option, and set it to download all of your emails from your old provider using POP3. You should be able find the POP3 settings for your email account on your ISPs website, or by contacting them.
Does this mean that I cannot send an address to a new provider that will alter where a reply will be sent, e.g., âprevious addressâ=ânew addressâ or is there a limit on the number of characters you can use?
Roy.
@Roy
You would have to check with your old provider whether or not they have a service for forwarding your emails to another address.
If you are switching from a free provider, you could simply keep the account open and set it to forward the mail if they have that option, or have your new email provider import the emails from your old provider, which is a service many email providers such as GMail have.
If neither of these options is available, you may have to keep checking the old account until all of your contacts have switched to sending to your new account.
If you are changing from a paid service, you may have to continue to pay until all of your contacts have switched to your new address.
will some one please help me all I want to do is keep my verizon email after I switch providers
Youâre going to probably have to keep paying to have the email from Verizon. And really, the only person you can ask for help with this is Verizon itself. Call up and ask about your options. Itâs their machinery and their setup, so they will have the only solutions for you.
I would like to grt my e-mail restored.