Internet question????

[joelyn]

hello, I have asked around and can't get a right answer so figured I would ask here since I always get great help here..
I have had earth-link as my Email and internet provider for years with a bill every month. I would like to switch to a free email provider like Gmail. my question is, is there a way to have all my earthlink email forwarded to my new Gmail acct automatically since i have so many contacts as well as bills etc that have my Earthlink email and no way could I even remember and change all my accts and subscriptions.
Thanks for any help in this matter

[joelyn]

Janss wrote:
Well, I called Earthlink today. My current account charge is $5.95 monthly. I asked about a yearly prepay. What she quoted me made it $4.95/mo. I said to her...hmmm, someone told me they called today and got a yearly plan at $3.45/mo. She said they must have a lesser plan. Huh? Didn't know about lesser plan. Turns out it is for up to 2 email addresses instead of 4. Well, I didn't even know my current account was for 4. We've only ever used 2. Of course, they never offered or advertised this difference to us in 20 years. And of course, I told her to change my account to the lesser one at $3.95 monthly or $35.40/yr, which makes it $2.95/mo. Yay!! I've never been so happy about saving 3 bucks a month! Ha ha!

Thanks again y'all!!

WOW, thats even a better deal than i got and i will have to check, as far as I ever new I only had one email acct. and I was paying 6.95 a month. the yearly bill is almost cut in half so thats a good thing but just curious about how many emails I have. thanks for the feedback...

[Janss]

Well, I called Earthlink today. My current account charge is $5.95 monthly. I asked about a yearly prepay. What she quoted me made it $4.95/mo. I said to her...hmmm, someone told me they called today and got a yearly plan at $3.45/mo. She said they must have a lesser plan. Huh? Didn't know about lesser plan. Turns out it is for up to 2 email addresses instead of 4. Well, I didn't even know my current account was for 4. We've only ever used 2. Of course, they never offered or advertised this difference to us in 20 years. And of course, I told her to change my account to the lesser one at $3.95 monthly or $35.40/yr, which makes it $2.95/mo. Yay!! I've never been so happy about saving 3 bucks a month! Ha ha!

Thanks again y'all!!

[Janss]

Gdetrailer....Thanks from me too! I'm going to call Earthlink too about this yearly deal. Thanks also joelyn for reporting back after you called them!

[Gdetrailer]

joelyn wrote:


thanks for this advise, i just called them and they put me on the yearly plan for just about half the cost. from 7 bucks a month to 3.45 a month... big help and have been happy with earthlink for 20 years so guess i will just stay with them for that price.
THANKS FOR THE SUGGESTION AND THANKS TO ALL FOR UR HELP. HAVE A GREAT WEEK..

Your welcome!

Earthlink doesn't advertise the yearly plan, they used to but they don't anymore. They used to have it setup on the Earthlink account login page making it very easy to login and refill the prepaid account.

The last time our prepaid account ran out of money they did not send a notice and they automatically switched us to the more expensive month to month plan. We couldn't figure out how to refill via the Internet Earthlink login page and had to give them a call to setup us back on the prepaid plan.

Now you have time to decide if you want to switch all of your accounts to Gmail address.

We have considered doing a change over but it is kind of nice to have an paid email service that has less incentive to rummage through and monetize data in our emails.

Gmail and any other free mail service scrapes off your useage data to make money from you, they don't really give it away from free, there is a cost and the cost is data about you..

[joelyn]

Gdetrailer wrote:

joelyn wrote:
hello, I have asked around and can't get a right answer so figured I would ask here since I always get great help here..
I have had earth-link as my Email and internet provider for years with a bill every month. I would like to switch to a free email provider like Gmail. my question is, is there a way to have all my earthlink email forwarded to my new Gmail acct automatically since i have so many contacts as well as bills etc that have my Earthlink email and no way could I even remember and change all my accts and subscriptions.
Thanks for any help in this matter

We have Earthlink, our original ISP used Earthlink for Email and then they dropped Earthlink in favor of their own home brewed email. We were given the choice to keep Earthlink but in doing so we would have to subscribe to Earthlink ourselves.

First, you can change the Earthlink billing to once a yr, you will prepay for the yr up front. Paying by the yr can save you money but you most likely will need to call Earthlink to set this up. Earthlink will still send a monthly statement but it will be zeroed out until you run out of money on the prepaid account.

As far as forwarding actual Earthlink domain emails goes, if you quit paying Earthlink I suspect forwarding Earthlink domain emails will also stop.

You are far better off simply one by one, changing the email addresses for all of your accounts from Earthlink to your Gmail address.

Exporting/importing Contacts and saved emails varies greatly depending on if you are using the webmail interface or using a third party email client (Thunderbird/Outlook).

thanks for this advise, i just called them and they put me on the yearly plan for just about half the cost. from 7 bucks a month to 3.45 a month... big help and have been happy with earthlink for 20 years so guess i will just stay with them for that price.
THANKS FOR THE SUGGESTION AND THANKS TO ALL FOR UR HELP. HAVE A GREAT WEEK..

[2oldman]

You don't have to do everything at once. Try a few things and see how it goes. You may find many of your contacts are ones that haven't been used in years, making the task much simpler.

[joelyn]

WOW, thanks for all the responses but for someone like me that knows nothing about computer talk and not really sure what some of the responses above even mean. i only use the PC for emails, pay bills and some searching maybe i will just continue paying the 6 bucks a month like I have been doing for the past 20 years and have had no problems... Hate to try something that I have no clue what to do and screw up everything and really lose all my folders etc. Figured I would save a few bucks if it was a simple task that I could handle... THANK YOU ALL for ur posts and assistance...

[1492]

The easiest solution is if earthlink email offers an auto-forwarding email copy to an external mail account. GMail does. Though brings up an important consideration in that one should not use a primary email account from an internet service provider (ISP). It's to their advantage to make it difficult, if not possible to auto forward emails as it keeps you locked in to their service. Just to avoid the hassles transferring archived mails and having to change email addresses in existing internet accounts.

GMail does have a feature to read emails from other service provider accounts. That may be the easiest method if GMail supports earthlink email? See Check emails from other accounts.

In GMail webmail, click the Gear icon and go to Accounts and Import > Check mail from other accounts: > Add a mail account.

Note that the built-in Outlook email client in WIN10 can also read/write emails from other email providers. Personally, I prefer free Outlook.com email account as it allows you to create separate email alias that forward to your primary account. This keeps your primary email address hidden from most spammers. When the alias email account is no longer useful, delete it and create more if desired.

One downside is that Outlook.com spam filter is somewhat aggressive, and can send legit emails to Junk folder. So need to check routinely, or set up contact or filter rules.

[Gdetrailer]

joelyn wrote:
hello, I have asked around and can't get a right answer so figured I would ask here since I always get great help here..
I have had earth-link as my Email and internet provider for years with a bill every month. I would like to switch to a free email provider like Gmail. my question is, is there a way to have all my earthlink email forwarded to my new Gmail acct automatically since i have so many contacts as well as bills etc that have my Earthlink email and no way could I even remember and change all my accts and subscriptions.
Thanks for any help in this matter

We have Earthlink, our original ISP used Earthlink for Email and then they dropped Earthlink in favor of their own home brewed email. We were given the choice to keep Earthlink but in doing so we would have to subscribe to Earthlink ourselves.

First, you can change the Earthlink billing to once a yr, you will prepay for the yr up front. Paying by the yr can save you money but you most likely will need to call Earthlink to set this up. Earthlink will still send a monthly statement but it will be zeroed out until you run out of money on the prepaid account.

As far as forwarding actual Earthlink domain emails goes, if you quit paying Earthlink I suspect forwarding Earthlink domain emails will also stop.

You are far better off simply one by one, changing the email addresses for all of your accounts from Earthlink to your Gmail address.

Exporting/importing Contacts and saved emails varies greatly depending on if you are using the webmail interface or using a third party email client (Thunderbird/Outlook).

[phil-t]

GMail does have an import feature. You will need to deal with all your accounts that use your earthlink account and have those changed along with any other users you want to continue corresponding with. arthlink should allow forwarding and if you keep that account for a bit, you can respond to any correspondance with your gmail account.

Good luck. I've advocated gmail, yahoo mail, etc. over provider accounts for may years. Loose your provider and you loose your mail account. Gmail will work on any provider's network.

[wa8yxm]

I believe G-mail (If not G-Mail than Yahoo mail) has an auto import link.. I do not use it.. I have 3 (Well actually more but the rest go to a black hole) E-Dresses. one is Gmail. One Yahoo and one is nowhere man. it's a reflector. (Forwards to one of the above) That last one is a membership service so one fellow member told me "If you forget to send in your dues they cut you off" (True but I have not sent in dues for over 45 years... I'm a life Member)

[bucky]

If you have to keep the earth link account in order to forward your emails why bother?

[Janss]

I have the same issue I've been thinking about for years. I haven't used Earthlink for my internet service provider in a very long time, but still use that email address, for which they charge me a somewhat nominal fee.

I see in the webmail preferences, under "General" there is Email forwarding, which allows you to have all incoming email forwarded to a different address. So that might help you.

I don't know how to move existing emails over other than to open and forward each one to your new email address.

In preferences you can also export your contacts in csv format. Then maybe you can import them into gmail.

[NamMedevac_70]

I switched from earthlink to free Gmail many years ago and transferred my earthlink emails to gmail if I remember correctly but do not remember how after all this time has passed. Google search may have the answer as well as youtube. I also remember my saving to the desktop many earthlink email contacts and messages before the switch. Gmail has been great. Earthlink continued to bill me after I left and sent me nasty messages to pay up even though I closed my account. USA headquarters in Georgia???

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EarthLink