Author Topic: Have you changed a long-established email address?  (Read 2042 times)

shelivesthedream

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Have you changed a long-established email address?
« on: June 17, 2021, 06:14:13 AM »
My email address is my maiden name. I still use that name for work (freelancer), but am spending an indeterminate number of years as a SAHP at the moment. In my personal life, I now always use my married name. It mildly bugs me that I give an email address that's different from the name I've given people, but I've had my maiden name email for about fifteen years so changing it is going to be some work.

It's a Gmail account, so I guess I can get the old one to forward to the new one, or schedule a reminder to check it every so often. I plan to keep it open/active for if/when I return to work, as I've enjoyed having two different "identities" in that way. But my old email is also my login for soooooo many sites. But then, I plan to live for several decades yet and it would be nice not to have this niggle for the rest of my life, and it's been bugging me for a few years now.

Have you done it? Any tips?

ender

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Re: Have you changed a long-established email address?
« Reply #1 on: June 17, 2021, 06:40:11 AM »
Do you not use a password manager? It should be easy to track your logins that way.

With gmail, you can easily send/respond to emails to multiple emails in one email inbox. You could create another account and forward one to the other and set it up so you can respond with your new one if you like.

My wife changed her email (which was similar, and used for 10+ years). It just sucks to do.

DadJokes

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Re: Have you changed a long-established email address?
« Reply #2 on: June 17, 2021, 06:49:59 AM »
My wife's email still uses her maiden name, and she has no plans to change it. I understand the annoyance, but it's a lot of work to swap everything over to a new email address.

I gave out my email address to a scammer once (I stopped before things got any further) and decided to create a new one out of an abundance of caution. It's been a few years, and I still haven't swapped everything over from that email address.

shelivesthedream

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Re: Have you changed a long-established email address?
« Reply #3 on: June 17, 2021, 07:53:53 AM »
@ender How would a password manager help? I've never used one, but my understanding is that it wouldn't help with the issue of needing to, for example, log in and tell the MMM forum to send emails to newname@email.com rather than oldname@email.com.

Thanks for the reminder about the single inbox, though. I will check that out.

@DadJokes It is a lot of work in some ways, but I'm 30 and might live til I'm 90. Do I want to spend 60 years being slightly bugged by something every day? The sooner I change it the more years of "result" I'll have. If I did it when I first thought of it, it would be done by now!

ender

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Re: Have you changed a long-established email address?
« Reply #4 on: June 17, 2021, 08:09:55 AM »
@ender How would a password manager help? I've never used one, but my understanding is that it wouldn't help with the issue of needing to, for example, log in and tell the MMM forum to send emails to newname@email.com rather than oldname@email.com.

It makes it so you can know which accounts to change.

Some logins you can change, some you can't.

Sibley

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Re: Have you changed a long-established email address?
« Reply #5 on: June 17, 2021, 08:10:34 AM »
What I did was create a new email, link old and new to Outlook, and start using the new. I switched over stuff when it came up. There's still plenty of stuff on the old email but it's not a problem.

jrhampt

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Re: Have you changed a long-established email address?
« Reply #6 on: June 17, 2021, 09:27:24 AM »
Might actually be easier to change your name back to your maiden name ;-)

the_gastropod

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Re: Have you changed a long-established email address?
« Reply #7 on: June 17, 2021, 09:45:11 AM »
Changing email addresses is a pain in the butt. If you're semi-tech-savvy, I can't recommend enough getting your own domain name, and paying for an email service that supports custom domains (e.g., fastmail.com). This way, you avoid having this problem again if, for example, gmail goes under or you just want to switch to another email provider. If you'll be ripping this band-aid off anyway, switching from one gmail address to another, it may make sense to do it with a bit more resilience in mind.

As others have mentioned, I think forwarding is your best strategy. Just forward <oldemailaddress@gmail.com> to <newemailaddress@whatever.com>, and don't worry about updating anything. You'll still get emails from, e.g., the MMM forums just fine. And as people email you, you'll respond from your new address, solving the problem of updating contacts kind of naturally over time. The lazy approach!
« Last Edit: June 17, 2021, 09:47:20 AM by the_gastropod »

hdatontodo

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Re: Have you changed a long-established email address?
« Reply #8 on: June 17, 2021, 10:29:57 AM »
Use an alias that goes to the same account.

https://www.gtricks.com/gmail/add-multiple-email-aliases/

Sent from my SM-G991U1 using Tapatalk


chemistk

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Re: Have you changed a long-established email address?
« Reply #9 on: June 17, 2021, 10:40:25 AM »
My wife, early last year, created a new email address after she had (like you) been using one with her maiden name for the better part of a decade.

The impetus for her was that she was getting far too much spam in her maiden name box, and not necessarily because she wanted one that reflected her legal name of the past 7 years. As for the spam thing - I did offer to go through and unsubscribe her from all the spam, but she didn't take me up on it.

Since then, it's been a slow migration to her new email. All correspondence and new accounts are handled with her updated address, but she's still logged into her old one in Gmail and checks it periodically. Here and there, accounts have been updated and it definitely helps to have the old one still active as family and friends who we haven't talked to in forever will use her old one. The old one also serves as an easy junkbox for grabbing "sign up for our newsletter and save 10% today" type codes.

All in, it hasn't been too much of a disruption. I'm sure a day will come where the old address will be put out to pasture.

shelivesthedream

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Re: Have you changed a long-established email address?
« Reply #10 on: June 17, 2021, 12:20:46 PM »
Might actually be easier to change your name back to your maiden name ;-)

Lol, and change my work name to my married name? Simples!

Use an alias that goes to the same account.

https://www.gtricks.com/gmail/add-multiple-email-aliases/

Sent from my SM-G991U1 using Tapatalk

Oh wow, this looks awesome. So I get two email address to send and receive from one inbox? And this isn't some flash in the pan feature they'll discontinue in six months?

I think I need to poke around the Gmail settings and see what I can do. I would call myself selectively tech savvy - I know a lot about things I actually need to do, and can learn quickly, but have big holes around stuff like hosting, so if I can get a quick fix this way that would be great for right now.

Paul der Krake

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Re: Have you changed a long-established email address?
« Reply #11 on: June 17, 2021, 01:45:08 PM »
DW forwarded jane.doe@ to jane.krake@ when she changed her name years ago and slowly and organically shifted all logins, when possible, from the former to the latter.

I don't think it was much of a burden, it's not like she is a risk of forgetting the name she had for the first 20-something years of her life.

Beardog

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Re: Have you changed a long-established email address?
« Reply #12 on: June 18, 2021, 06:46:47 PM »
I recently changed from an email address I've had for about 20 years to a Posteo email account.  Posteo has a service which will check the old email account every 10 minutes and move incoming messages from the old email account into the new Posteo account.  This feature automatically expires in 3 months, but you will receive a notification when it expires and can reset the service for another 3 months indefinitely. 

Posteo provides freedom from junk mail, and excellent security and privacy features, although the interface is not the most sophisticated.  There is a an annual fee based on the amount of storage you require.  I use the minimum space and pay about $15 a year.  Posteo does not maintain a record of who owns the account so if privacy is important to you, I think it is a great option.  I access the service exclusively through a desktop computer so I cannot comment on the phone app.  Posteo will respond to questions that you may have with excellent customer service.


secondcor521

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Re: Have you changed a long-established email address?
« Reply #13 on: June 18, 2021, 08:23:51 PM »
I got a new yahoo email in 2006 when I got divorced.  I used that for everything for about 14 years.

Unfortunately, yahoo email is really bad at getting rid of spam emails, despite what they say.  So I have been switching over to a new gmail account over the past year or so.

I'm doing it the lazy way.  I was able to forward the yahoo email to gmail for a while, but they discontinued that service as of the end of last year.

During that forwarding time, I would go into any accounts I knew I wanted to change and proactively changed those.  Things like banks, credit cards, and friends who email me regularly.

So now what I do is just have two browser tabs open on my laptop at home, and I periodically check my yahoo email.  If something comes in that isn't spam, I just gradually and lazily try to shift it over to gmail.

Things tend to die off in a manageable manner if you just keep dealing with the most common offenders first.  I've got it down to a trickle now.  Unfortunately the biggest offender is my 85 year old Dad, so I'll have to figure out how he emails me and go over on his computer to change it around for him, because he's very minimally skilled tech-wise.

FIPurpose

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Re: Have you changed a long-established email address?
« Reply #14 on: June 18, 2021, 09:09:44 PM »
I've switched my primary personal email 3 or 4 times.

bellsouth.net -> <I can't remember... comcast.net maybe?> -> college email -> att.net -> live.com

Basically, I just have my old email forward to the new one. And start creating a accounts using the new one. Whenever it's convenient, I'll update my email on a site here or there. Over the period of about 6 months, most everything that I care about or use regularly is switched over.

It's not too big of a deal. No one is paying attention to your email address so if they continue emailing your old email and you respond from the new one... I doubt anyone is looking that closely.

shelivesthedream

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Re: Have you changed a long-established email address?
« Reply #15 on: June 19, 2021, 10:33:36 AM »
Ugh, I've been derailed by the fact that someone HAS MY EMAIL ADDRESS ALREADY. Neither my first name not my maiden name not my married name are that common - but apparently there's another Firstname Married name out there and she uses Gmail too.  BOTHER.

Now I have to decide whether to go for Firstname.Marriedname or InitialMarriedname or what. Or whoopsmybutt69@aol.com.

secondcor521

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Re: Have you changed a long-established email address?
« Reply #16 on: June 19, 2021, 06:19:03 PM »
Ugh, I've been derailed by the fact that someone HAS MY EMAIL ADDRESS ALREADY. Neither my first name not my maiden name not my married name are that common - but apparently there's another Firstname Married name out there and she uses Gmail too.  BOTHER.

Now I have to decide whether to go for Firstname.Marriedname or InitialMarriedname or what. Or whoopsmybutt69@aol.com.

How about ulysses.s.grant@gmail.com?  (or your actual equivalent)

FYI, if your email is jane.s.doe@gmail.com, you can have stuff sent to janesdoe@gmail.com and it will get to your inbox.  (And also j.a.n.e.s.d.o.e@gmail.com and all the variations thereof.)

BlueHouse

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Re: Have you changed a long-established email address?
« Reply #17 on: July 09, 2021, 02:42:17 PM »
Wow, I might be crazy with what I've done. 
I have a spider-web of 7 or 8 gmail accounts that I forward to one another and that I use for all different purposes. 
1. My personal that I use for family/friends.  This has a weird nickname, so I don't like certain people to see it.
2.  an account that I use for personal business like credit cards, doctors, anything important and official, etc.
3. an account that I use for things related to my business, but that aren't really business.  Like Linked In, etc. Basically, I want my full name visible in this account, but I don't want to be bothered with it on weekends.  I'll probably abandon this within a year as I no longer need to communicate with anyone not considered friend or family. 
4-10.  a series of email accounts with my first initial,Lastname + the year that I opened it.  I use these for things that I need a login for, but I'm quite certain they will sell my information or spam me, or whatnot.  There's NEVER anything that I would need to respond to, so these are great for forwarding.  I just abandon them after a while. 
11. A work email with my own domain.  I'm not sure if I'll keep this after this year (I FIREd in March of this year)

It's not difficult to maintain at all.  I have things directed to outlook and also all combined on my iPhone.  I've recently been receiving a lot of phishing attempts from Amex that look very real (telling me they just declined a purchase because it looked like fraud and could I get in touch ASAP), but then realized that the email address they used doesn't have an amex.  So that made my life easier. 



shelivesthedream

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Re: Have you changed a long-established email address?
« Reply #18 on: July 10, 2021, 01:58:58 PM »
What in fact happened is I suddenly got really sick again and all this went out the window. But now I'm getting better. I'm surprised by the number of people who use outlook! I thought it was only for big companies and oldsters :) I don't know anyone my age who uses it for personal email.

I think my plan is to just sign up for the new Gmail address and figure what forwarding or auto responder or joint inbox thing makes sense from there. Minimise inertia!