How to Keep Your Email Address When Switching Internet Providers

Jan 29

For a lot of people, an ISP provided email address has been part of their digital life for years sometimes decades. But when it’s time to switch internet providers to save money, improve speed, or upgrade reliability, one big worry always pops up:

“What happens to my email?”

The good news is that you can switch ISPs without losing access to your long time email account. With a little planning, you can transition smoothly and avoid missing important messages.

Here’s a clean, practical workflow you can follow.

1. Check Whether Your ISP Offers Email Only Service

Many internet providers now allow customers to keep their email accounts even after canceling internet service. This is often called:

Email only service
Standalone email
Legacy email retention

Before doing anything else, call your ISP and ask:

“Can I cancel my internet service but keep my email address?”
“What is the monthly cost for email only service?”

If they say yes, you’re already halfway there.

2. Create Your New Long Term Email Address

Even if you keep your ISP email temporarily, you don’t want to rely on it forever. ISP emails are tied to a company you may not stay with long term.

Choose a permanent, provider independent email service such as:

Outlook.com
Gmail.com

If you prefer using the Outlook desktop or mobile app, Outlook.com integrates more smoothly than Gmail. It’s simply a better experience for Outlook users.

Create your new address now you’ll use it during the transition.

3. Set Up Email Forwarding From Your ISP Email

This ensures:

You don’t miss messages during the transition
Everything continues to arrive in one inbox
You can start replying from your new address immediately

Forwarding is the key to a painless migration.

4. Install Your New Internet Service

Go ahead and sign up with your new ISP and get everything installed. Your old ISP email will continue working during this time.

5. Cancel Your Old Internet Service (But Keep the Email)

Once your new internet service is up and running, call your old ISP and cancel the internet portion of your account but keep the email only plan.

This stops the billing for internet service while preserving your inbox.

6. Notify Everyone of Your New Email Address

This part takes time, but it’s important.

Start updating:

Banks and financial institutions
Online accounts and subscriptions
Friends, family, and coworkers
Business contacts
Any mailing lists you care about

Because forwarding is active, you won’t miss anything while you update your contacts.

7. After About Six Months, Cancel the Old ISP Email

Six months is usually enough time for:

Everyone to update your contact info
Mailing lists to switch over
Old senders to stop using your ISP address

Once you’re confident nothing important is still coming through, cancel the ISP email service entirely.

You’re now fully independent of your old provider and your email address will never be tied to an ISP again.

Need Help Making the Switch?

Email migrations can be confusing, especially if you’ve had the same address for years. If you want a smooth, stress‑free transition, R‑Tech can handle the entire process for you.

Give us a call we’re happy to help.

Roger Ahuja