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Listener Deborah Wants To Know If You Can Keep Your Email Address When You Drop Your ISP?

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Deborah asked: “I have an IP that is horrible, but I don’t want to give up my e-mail address which I’ve had for years. I’d like to know if it’s possible to go to one of the faster Internet providers and still keep my e-mail address.”

She also asked us: “This is probably the craziest question you’ve ever had, but if I have 1700 pictures on my iPhone, does that in any way add any weight to my phone?”

Deborah, in your particular case you can keep your email address, if you feel it’s worth the cost.

Deborah in particular has Earthlink email, Earthlink does allow former customers to keep their email address if they switch over to their paid “Premium Mail” service. Premium Mail costs $7.95/month or $79.80 a year, and it comes with features like Outlook compatibility, webmail access, and 300MB of storage… all of which may have been impressive coming from a free email provider in 1999.

If $7.95/month sounds like too much for email (which it is), you could always transition by setting an out-of-office auto-reply telling people about your new email and when this current one will be disconnected. Hopefully that will be enough for most people to save your new address.

If $7.95/month sounds like too much for email (which it is), you could always transition by setting an out-of-office auto-reply

So, in the end, you simply have to decide how important your email identity is to you. If it’s worth $7.95 a month, then pay that sum and keep it. If it’s not, then go ahead and ditch it.

The obvious choice these days is Gmail. You get 15GB of free storage with a personal Google account, and this is shared between Gmail and Google Drive. Gmail addresses are so common, however, that there is no negative connotation to using them. People expect Gmail addresses.

If you choose to get a new Gmail account but you want to keep your old Earthlink address, you can link that Earthlink account to your Gmail account. You have to send a verification email to prove you own the Earthlink account, but after that Gmail will let you send email using the old address, so people honestly never know.

Just set your Earthlink account to forward to Gmail, then tell Gmail to reply using the Earthlink address, and no one will be the wiser. We hope we’ve helped you understand your options.

 

As for your iPhone’s weight: No. Your iPhone stores pictures by moving electrons around, you’re not putting anything onto your phone that can alter the weight in any way.

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Written by Dave Graveline

Dave Graveline is the founder, Host & Executive Producer of "Into Tomorrow" in addition to being President of the Advanced Media Network".

Dave is also a trusted and familiar voice on many national commercials & narrations in addition to being an authority in consumer tech since 1994. He is also a former Police Officer and an FBI Certified Instructor.

Dave thrives on audience participation!

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  1. I would like to sever ties with my Earthlink Internet (through Time Warner Cable) but want to keep my email address. Earthlink Customer Service has told me to upgrade to Premium Mail by phone, not online, since I have an existing email with them. I tried to do this and my phone call was dropped while being transferred to the correct department.
    My question is, if I successfully switch to Premium Mail for $79 a year, will I really be able to keep my email address later when I change from Earthlink Cable(through TWC) to a faster, non Earthlink Cable (also with TWC)?