The estimated reading time for this post is 5 minutes
Have you ever opened your email inbox only to find that a message you sent to an old friend (say, something important like you’re getting married, expecting your first child and/or need bail money) was bounced back into your inbox with a Failure Notice: “207.178.205.252 does not like recipient,” meaning your friend never received the email?
Holding out hope, you try sending the message again with the same result. Then you realize that sending an email was the only way you had of contacting her and that unless she gets in touch with you, you just lost a friend. “Why can’t everyone be on Facebook?” you think, as you wonder if you’ll ever get back in touch with your friend again.
Having had this exact issue happen to me when some of my friends moved away from England, I have become a firm believer in email for life (okay, maybe some people want to disappear intentionally, but that’s not today’s topic). What is email for life? It’s an email address you can keep no matter which Internet provider you use, where you live or what computer you use.
Internet providers, such as Comcast and Verizon in the US, offer their customers “free” email accounts when signing up for Internet service. (Internet providers aren’t necessarily being generous. Many customers don’t want to switch Internet providers because they don’t want to lose their email addresses, so providing an email account to customers is an effective marking tool for these companies.) Plenty of people eagerly take advantage of this offer and immediately open a new email account when they sign up for a new Internet provider, then send all of their friends their new email address:
and ask them to delete their old email address:
whydidIeverusethissillyoldInternetprovider@worldsslowestInternetprovider.com.
The problem with having an email account through your Internet provider is the very real possibility that when you change your Internet provider:
a) the email to your 200+ contacts informing them of your new email address goes into their spam folders,
b) they miss your message, their inbox being flooded with 1000 spam messages on that particular day, or
c) they think they’ll get around to changing your email address in their contacts list later, never do, and accidentally delete your message.
Another very real problem is that changing Internet providers often happens when you move to a new home in a far away place. You have a very long to-do list and sending people notice of your new email address is toward the bottom of the list, just below getting Fido a new dog tag.
So you decide to wait until you’re comfortably settled in your new home before tackling these issues. Except getting settled takes quite a bit longer than you thought it would and when you’ve finally made your way to the bottom of your to-do list you suddenly realize you can’t access your old email account. You can’t retrieve your contact list or any saved emails from friends either. You can’t even send them an email to let them know that you’re having this issue.
An easy way to avoid these problems is by signing up for email with one of the free email service providers, such as Google, Yahoo or Hotmail. The advantages of these services are many, with the most important one being that you will have an email address that will follow you no matter which Internet provider you use, where you live or from which computer you access your email.
You can send your friends a “once and for all” email letting them know that your new email where you can be found from now on. That’s it. Done. You have an email address for life and never have to switch again. Great for you and for your friends. (Again, please disregard this if you wish to conveniently burn some awkward bridges and disappear from everyone you have ever known at various phases in your life).
Other advantages include:
- unlimited (or nearly unlimited) storage so if you don’t get around to cleaning out your inbox, no problem;
- easy access to your emails and contact list from your cell phone or other mobile device (because honestly, someday you probably will get a smartphone);
- better organization of your inbox (stay tuned for a future discussion on organizing your inbox); and
- keeping your contact list forever (though after a while you might wonder who some of these people are).
“Sounds great,” you’re thinking. “I’ll have to do that someday, when I have free time.” Nope. Do it today. Right now. It doesn’t take much time at all to set up a new email address and then send out an email letting your friends know of your new email address. I’ll help. Here are the links to the three email providers mentioned above:
Don’t know which one to choose? Here is a link to a comparison of various email providers: Comparison of Webmail Providers.
Here’s the text you can copy and paste into your email: “Hey, I decided to get a new email for life so after you change my email address to this one, you will never have to do it again. I promise.” Done. See, wasn’t that easy?
Should you care which email providers are “hot”? Yes and no. If an email provider is hot, that probably means that the email service works well and has lots of handy functions you might find useful. Should you care because having a hot email address makes you cool? No.
If you’re excited about the idea of switching email providers, but trying to decide between Gmail and AOL, make sure to watch this important video:
Bottom Line
If your email provider is also your Internet provider, it’s time to change to an email for life. What may seem like an effort now will pay off in the long run by allowing you to keep your email address no matter which Internet provider you choose.
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Is your email provider also your Internet provider? Do you have a friend who switches email accounts every time she gets a new Internet provider? Let us know in the Comments section below!
* Image by Sean MacEntee
** Image courtesy of Ramberg Media Images via Flickr and Creative Commons
Hi Carolyn,
It is a good point. I have one I use with my Internet provider and one with Yahoo which is more or less public and a Gmail account most of my friends know. I also have Hotmail for IM. When I get my own domain I think I’ll use that email address for business purposes. I’m not likely to change internet provider but all my LinkedIn contacts would have to be informed of a change of email address. I have another Art blog today! I have a video blog but it didn’t embed as I expected and the resolution is poor full screen. I got a new subscriber and so I’m doing something right! Thrifty blog tomorrow! That’s popular.
Hi MIke, Wow, you have a lot of email addresses. But it sounds as if you’re using them wisely. Each one seems to have a specific purpose so you are using them efficiently.
I am excited to visit your NeoDigital Art blog. I thoroughly enjoy all of the topics you write about but NeoDigital Art is my true favorite of your blogs. It’s okay to have a favorite, right?
Thanks so much, Mike, for your visit and for being the most prolific Wonder of Tech commenter in July! 🙂
Cute, I just had a conversation w/ someone yesterday telling them to sign up for an e-mail account w/ gmail instead of yahoo.
My main was is my business e-mail but should probably start using my gmail for personal and quit trying to blend the two.
With the business e-mail it is subject to anyone reading it, but I’m not really saying anything that shouldn’t be read except for some of the stuff my ‘friends’ send me…………:).
Good info; I’m going to pass this on to my friend.
Hi Bill, good idea to separate out your personal email from your home email. Of course you wouldn’t want to put anything in an email that you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of the newspaper. 😉
Definitely spread the good word about this article. And any other article you enjoy here at The Wonder of Tech! That’s funny though that you were just discussing this topic. Some folks prefer Yahoo, others Gmail. But the requirement for a Gmail account for a Google+ account may give folks incentive to sign up for Gmail instead of Yahoo.
Thanks so much for your visit, awesome comment and tweet! 🙂
Yes, I actually experienced it few times before and it’s very disappointing that I can’t no longer contact my friends in any ways. But now, I could say that social networking sites are really great help for me to constantly communicate with them.
Hi Samantha, Yes, I agree, many friends I don’t even have their email addresses, I just send them messages via Facebook. But not everyone is on Facebook so then having their email addresses becomes vital for communication!
Thanks so much, Samantha, for your visit and comment. 🙂
Yeah! Not all of them are using FB as often as they could. Also, some are using different names that’s why I find myself clueless about their account.
This is a great idea, Carolyn! Thankfully, I’ve had email for life for years now. And I love it. Even when I had an email account with my Internet provider, I still kept my regular email for life. My friends know to reach me there if they ever need to send me an important note. I do have a few friends, however, that I have completely lost touch with. Email for life would have helped.
Thanks for the post and have a good one.
Hi Allyson, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! That’s great you have kept an email for life. Unfortunately when people move and change their internet providers, they often lose not only their email accounts but also their contact lists. So even though you have an email for life, your friends who move may still not be able to get in touch with you after they move.
To me, the most difficult aspect of living in England was the fact that so many other ex-pat families moved away each summer. Squeezing in all of the good-byes in a short time frame meant that often contact information wasn’t shared. So if someone didn’t have a Facebook page or an email for life, the relationship was ended.
I hope that everyone moves to an email for life, the sooner the better!
Thanks so much, Allyson for your visit and brilliant comment! 🙂
Hi
I’ve both gmail and a yahoo email.
you just got to watch your yahoo mail
because it will bounce some times.
it is funny because i got a message from
a lady who at 1 time i was real close to than
for over 2 years didn’t here from here. well the
site me met on close its doors after 4 years
but you know what all she wanted me to do was
sign up to another site that paid. i gave that up3 or 4 years
ago when i started twitter. i sent a reply back to her asking
what it was i’ve yet to get an answer from her.
Enjoyed your blog have a great night
Bonnie Squires
Hi Bonnie, I’m sorry you lost touch with your friend. You’re right, sometimes even when you have someone’s email address you can lose touch which is also sad. But since it’s easier than ever to stay in touch with friends these days, if you drift apart, you may re-connect later in life in a different manner.
Thanks so much, Bonnie, for your visit, touching comment and kind tweet! 🙂
Hi Carolyn,
Email for life is a really great thing! It not only simple to use and free, but it also helps you keep in touch with all your friends without having to worry about what will happen when you change your internet provider. I’ve been using email for life for about 5 years now and i love it. But if you unfortunately lost contact with a friend you can always search him on Facebook or other social networks.
Hi Jocuri, Welcome back to The Wonder of Tech! You’re absolutely right, email is free! How often we take that for granted, but it’s a great example of how something we value so much in the world of tech we pay nothing for. Very cool.
Social networks are also free, but not everyone is on them. Facebook is free and simple to use (well, mostly) but some people don’t like that way of connecting with others. And some don’t check email either. But if the friendship is important, it will continue despite obstacles.
Thanks so much, Jocuri, for your visit and your thoughtful comment! 🙂
Hi Carolyn,
I never thought that this could actually cause some problems. I’m using gmail and yahoo right now but I’ll definitely put in mind not to use emails from other providers that could only provide it temporarily. Thanks for pointing this out. 🙂
Hi Vie, you’re not the only one. I think a lot of people who are offered a “free email account” from a new internet provider don’t realize that they will lose it when they switch internet providers. Most providers give you a grace period, but some don’t.
Thanks so much, Vie, for your visit and your awesome comment!
When I see AOL email addresses, I visualize dinosaurs.
#just saying 🙂
And talk about email for life … I had a hotmail acct some 8-9 yrs back, it was a less frequently used account. Once it so happened that I didn’t log on for over a month. Next time I logged in, my emails were gone. Seriously! The inbox was empty, and all the folders were gone.
I pleaded with Microsoft to charge me money to get me back some of those emails (there were some semi-important emails too) from backups or wherever, but they were gone.
And all I did was not log into my account for a month!!? I have special feeling for Microsoft ever since.
Hi iRewardChart, Ouch, having all of your email messages deleted after a month of not logging in had to hurt. Microsoft isn’t going to win any fans that way. Though I will say that’s one way to clear out your email. I imagine you had to send people a note telling them that you were closing your Hotmail account after that.
Thanks so much, iRewardChart, for your visit and your wise words of warning about Hotmail!