I have used BT Openworld as my email provider for more than 10 years, and until now I have been paying £1.60 a month as I no longer have a BT landline. However, BT says the fee is soon to increase to £5 a month! Please can you suggest a reliable free alternative email provider? I have tried to set up a Yahoo account, but whenever I try to log in to Yahoo the screen reverts to BT Openworld. Patrick
Think of your Yahoo problem as a blessed escape. There are a couple of dozen free or freemium email services, but for most people, it boils down to Google’s Gmail or Microsoft’s Outlook.com. I recommend both, with Gmail as the primary address. Not everybody has the same requirements, but these meet most needs.
Of course, some people want particular features, and may be willing to pay for them. These can include privacy, encryption, more storage space, the ability to use your own domain name, support for the IMAP and Microsoft EAS (Exchange ActiveSync) email protocols, add-on services such as instant messaging and calendars, and companion apps for smartphones and tablets. Some people don’t want Google scanning their emails for its targeted advertising. Such considerations provide opportunities for smaller services such as FastMail and ProtonMail – the latter offers extra security and end-to-end encryption.
Think carefully about your priorities before you decide. Changing email addresses involves some work and can be a chore for your contacts. You don’t want to do it twice.
For this reason, I recommend registering your own domain and using that for your email address: it enables you to switch email providers while retaining the same Patrick@my.name.com email address. Unfortunately, both Gmail and Outlook.com have stopped offering that service for free, though you may find it elsewhere. (Try GMX Mail, Rackspace or Runbox, for example.) It’s more common with paid-for/business accounts, including Gmail and Zoho Mail.
Wikipedia has several useful tables in its Comparison of webmail providers, though a few entries may not be right up-to-date.
However, note that you can avoid some webmail problems – including terrible web interface designs – by using an email client running on your PC. Popular examples include Microsoft Outlook, eM Client, Thunderbird, and Windows Live Mail. Clients also let you operate several mailboxes from the same software.
Importing your emails and contacts
One of the most useful features of a new mail service is the ability to import all the emails and contacts from your old one. Both Gmail and Outlook.com seem to do this pretty well, though it can take a few days or even weeks to collect everything.
In Gmail, click the cogwheel and select Settings, go to the tab that says “Accounts and import” and click on “Import mail and contacts”. In Outlook.com, click the cogwheel and select “Connected accounts” (or if not there, “Options”). Next, under “Add a connected account”, select “Other email accounts”. Outlook.com lets you import your old email straight into your new inbox or into a new folder, with subfolders like your old account. Gmail can’t do folders.
Of course, it does depend on your new mailbox having enough space. Google provides 15GB, shared with Gdrive, which should be enough. (Having used Gmail since it opened, I’ve had to delete emails with large attachments to stay under the limit.) Outlook.com provides infinite space, but the actual space expands slowly from 5GB, so a flurry of large emails can lead to “mailbox full” messages. (Having used Outlook.com since it opened, I’ve never had to delete any emails.)
Both Gmail and Outlook.com allow mail forwarding, which means you can have all incoming emails automatically forwarded to another email address. I have Gmail forwarding to my Outlook.com account, so if I’m ever locked out of Gmail, I won’t lose access to my old emails.
After using both systems for more than a decade, I find Gmail faster, more powerful, and easier to use, so that’s what I recommend. In general, they are not too far apart on features, but Gmail is more configurable. Either way, the latest version of Outlook.com has “infinite pages” (at least, I can’t figure out how to turn them off), and the search/move operation is a nightmare.
For someone contemplating paying BT – or anyone else – £5 a month, I’d suggest Microsoft Outlook 365. This gets you a powerful email service with a terabyte of storage, the full Microsoft Office programs running locally on your PC or Mac, smartphone and tablet apps for Android and Apple iOS, and human help. Office 365 Personal costs £59.99 per year for one user, while Office 365 Home costs £79.99 per year for up to five users.
Email log-ons
On Twitter, Steve Hewitt – who has the same issue with BT – pointed out an extra problem: he uses his BT email address to log on to various websites. This could include Facebook.
Usually, websites only use your email address to send a confirmation letter when you sign up. They don’t check it every time you log on. These websites should therefore continue to work even if the email address doesn’t.
However, you will run into problems if you need a password recovery or something similar, because the website will send the access code to your defunct email address. You must therefore check any email addresses stored on these websites and update them to your new Gmail address.
Have you got a question? Email it to Ask.Jack@theguardian.com
