PN email after leaving/alternatives?

[#1]

Hi there,

I'm presently in a situation where I'm an old F9 customer, this is all good and such but one thing that's nagged me recently is my multiple e-mail addresses.

If I were to leave PN, would I lose these addresses completely or could they be kept accessible for a small monthly fee or something - I didn't see anything like this being offered and I know PN don't do "email only" accounts any more.

I guess what I'm asking is this:

I'm in a tricky situation due to unforeseen circumstances - as of writing - I have multiple e-mail mailboxes set-up and I use these for different tasks/situations depending on what's needed (rather than 1 e-mail address for everything).

If I found I had to leave, are there ways I can keep these addresses or would I need to potentially look at alternative solutions first - before leaving - so that I can get e-mails swapped over?

If the latter - what sort of options do I have, I know gmail offer aliases but these don't seem to be 'real' mailboxes, simply aliases - meaning mail would still go from my main account - something I really do not want.

In addition, my elderly parents have e-mails set-up on an F9 free account (read: old dial-up pay as you go) and this works well for them, so I need to also handle how to cater for them as well (we're in the same home) - as the account works provided the e-mails are sent using a PN broadband service, but this will stop working (as far as I'm aware) from any other service.

I'm happy to explore free or paid options for e-mail provision, but it doesn't need to be huge - I presently use SMTP and POP and (despite how old school these might be) I'm quite happy to stick with this for the immediate. Confusing my parents with webmail etc would probably be far too much for them and I generally use Outlook (desktop client) to handle their e-mails and mine. (Separate PCs)

The point of this post is to ask for opinions or thoughts/ideas that I can research or consider - so if things do go awry, I have some sort of plan in place rather than simply just losing all e-mail mailboxes.

[#2]

'@zombies In a few words - if you close your account with Plusnet, all your email accounts would cease when the account is closed. Plusnet no longer offer email facilities to new customers, and with effect from June last year, do not offer leaving customers the option of 'email only' accounts.

Unfortunately, I can't answer the remainder of your post, having never had the need to change to another email facility, but maybe @Townman  or  @MisterW  could offer some guidance?

[#3]

If I were to leave PN, would I lose these addresses completely or could they be kept accessible for a small monthly fee or something

you would lose the addresses. There are no longer email only accounts , paid or free.

I'd start to look at getting your own domain and email hosting.

A .uk domain should cost about £8 yr and a mail hosting with multiple mailboxes and aliases anything from £20/yr upwards depending on no of mailboxes and storage space

I currently use mythic-beasts ( https://www.mythic-beasts.com/hosting ) which costs £20/yr for 2Gb space , unlimited mailboxes and aliases.

They also allow multiple domains ,so you could get a 2nd domain for your parents hosted on the same account.

Yes, its going to be short term pain changing email addresses but worth while in the end to separate email from your isp.

[#4]

Will you lose your email address (as opposed to email service) will depend on if you have used a personal domain name with the Plusnet email hosting.

I do not recall how Force9 was configured, but Plusnet accounts of that legacy came with a personal domain name free for life.  Thus one could address email as follows...

• you@youraccount.plus.com
• You@yourdomain.co.uk

Whichever of the two forms of address above is used, the email arrives in the same place.  If the second form has been used, then the email ADDRESS can be moved (hosted) anywhere you wish, as suggested by @MisterW .

If the first form has been used, when (if) the account is closed, the email address will be lost irretrievably.  If your needs are simple (you certainly suggest that your parents' are) you could consider a free email account by one of the big hosting providers, such as Outlook.com - which works very well with many OC email clients.  The web browser interface is also very neat!

[#5]

@MisterW 
After a little thought, it'd probably be easier to give my parents gmail or outlook.com addresses as these are free and don't require anything special in terms of their needs - they just need to be able to use them with the OC (outlook client).

They'd still be using SMTP/POP so they'd not really need storage on the mailbox as they tend to download their e-mails several times a day and have no interest in accessing them from mobile devices etc.

As for myself, I'm going to need to go the hosted domain + email addresses route - as I simply have too many addresses for too many purposes (I like to use e-mail addresses much the same way as I like to organize files/folders - specific addresses for specific things - also means if one is compromised, I can change/replace it and use an alias until I re-register accounts etc)

As of writing I have 20-30 mailboxes and at least 10-15 aliases. Whilst many of these mailboxes are not used heavily - they still serve a purpose.

I will certainly take a look at mythic-beasts as it looks reasonable and you've already stated it will do what I'm needing, I don't need/want website hosting or that capability (if it comes with it - that's fine but I won't use it).

I assume it also has some sort of webmail interface as well as SMTP/POP/IMAP? (I plan to continue using the OC - but it's something I should probably learn to live without as far as e-mail goes - although it's good for my calendar needs)

@Townman 
The addresses were used as @zombies.force9.net - there was a domain registered, but this had expired back in 2008 and is no longer available from what I can determine.

Makes me wish I'd kept it to be honest but I'd still need e-mail hosting regardless.

I'd welcome any other ideas or thoughts though

[#6]

I assume it also has some sort of webmail interface as well as SMTP/POP/IMAP

@zombies  it does, it uses Roundcube like Plusnet

As of writing I have 20-30 mailboxes and at least 10-15 aliases. Whilst many of these mailboxes are not used heavily - they still serve a purpose.

I use less mailboxes,  around 5 but many more aliases, about 50

[#7]

If you have used *.force9.net you are up the creek! You should start by getting yourself a domain name, get it hosted, build your email addresses … then start the process of telling the world your new email addresses. Keep a watch on the old ones chasing those you want to stay in contact with who persist in using the old ones. When the old ones go quite, you can walk away from them safely!

Follow @MisterW ‘s guidance. I’ve looked into that provider in some detail - their email hosting is as functionally rich as Plusnet’s (in all the ways you described) with bells on. Whilst with Plusnet you can have a catchall to the default mailbox, that hosting provider facilitates catchall to any mailbox.

Should I need to move, I think that is where I’ll be taking my domain.

As for your parents, with those two providers, I’d use IMAP not POP3 - avoids the risk of losing email history … their storage limits are substantial!!

[#8]

1&1 does an email only offering (i.e. with no web hosting). It also offers a transfer service, which should transfer all your existing emails from your PlusNet email accounts to your 1&1 accounts. I haven't tried this myself though.

[#9]

You also need to watch out for the ‘once in a blue moon’ emailers who might use your ‘old’ address. Things like annual subscriptions or long-lost relatives at birthday time and the like. Last time I did this I wrote a script to email every sender in my email archive. Got an awful lot of bounces but I think I notified everyone.