Step-by-step guide to migrating your email to a new provider without losing messages, contacts, or access to accounts that use your email address.
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Pre-Migration Planning
List every account linked to your current email
Search your inbox for 'welcome,' 'verify,' and 'confirm' to find accounts. The average person has 70-130 online accounts tied to a single email address. Make a spreadsheet of every service — you'll need to update each one. This step alone prevents 90% of migration headaches.
Check banking and financial accounts
Check social media and shopping accounts
Check subscription services and newsletters
Set up your new email account
Create the account on your new provider and configure basic settings. If you're moving to a custom domain email, verify the domain ownership first — this typically involves adding a TXT record to your DNS and takes 5-30 minutes to verify.
Plan for a 3-6 month overlap period
Keep your old email active for at least 3-6 months after migration. Messages from services you forgot to update will still arrive at the old address. Set a calendar reminder to check the old inbox weekly during this period, then monthly.
Transferring Existing Email
Export or migrate your email archive
Most providers offer an export tool that creates a downloadable archive of all your messages. A 10 GB mailbox takes 1-3 hours to export. Alternatively, use IMAP to sync messages between providers — this copies messages one by one and preserves folder structure.
Transfer your contacts
Export contacts as a VCF or CSV file from your old provider's contacts section. Import into your new provider. A typical contact list of 200-500 entries takes under a minute to import. Verify a few random contacts afterward to confirm phone numbers and details transferred correctly.
Recreate email filters and labels
Document your existing filters before migrating — most providers don't export filter rules. If you have 10-20 filters, manually recreating them takes 15-30 minutes. Prioritize filters that sort important emails like receipts, bills, and work messages.
Set up your email signature on the new account
Recreate your email signature in the new provider's settings. Keep it under 4-5 lines with your name, title, phone number, and one link. Overly complex HTML signatures with images often render poorly across different email clients.
Forwarding and Transition
Set up email forwarding from old to new
In your old provider's settings, enable automatic forwarding to your new email address. This catches any messages sent to the old address during transition. Test it by sending a message to the old address and confirming it arrives at the new one within 1-2 minutes.
Configure the new account to send as your old address
Most email providers let you add 'Send as' aliases. This lets you reply from your old address through the new provider during the transition. Recipients see your old address as the sender, so they won't notice the switch until you're ready.
Set up an auto-reply on the old account
Create a vacation/auto-reply message on the old account saying something like 'My new email address is X. Please update your contacts.' Set it to reply once per sender. This passively notifies people who email the old address without you chasing each one individually.
Updating Account Emails
Update your most critical accounts first
Start with banking, email recovery, cloud storage, and your primary social media accounts. These are the highest-risk accounts and the ones you use most often. Updating 5-10 critical accounts takes about 30-45 minutes since each requires email verification.
Update banking and financial accounts
Update Apple ID or platform account
Update cloud storage and backup services
Update social media and communication accounts
Change your email on each social media platform and messaging service. Most require you to verify the new email by clicking a link. Do 5-10 accounts per day to avoid getting overwhelmed. Some platforms send a confirmation to both old and new addresses.
Update shopping and subscription accounts
These are lower priority but still important for receipts and order confirmations. Check your credit card statement for recurring charges to identify subscriptions you might forget. The average person has 8-12 active subscriptions billing monthly.
Update your email with government and medical services
Tax authorities, healthcare portals, voting registration, and government ID accounts often use email for important notifications. These accounts change less frequently, making them easy to forget. Update them now to avoid missed tax notices or appointment reminders.
Security Setup on New Account
Enable two-factor authentication
Go to your new provider's security settings and enable 2FA with an authenticator app. Your email is the master key to all other accounts — if someone accesses it, they can reset passwords everywhere. SMS 2FA is acceptable but authenticator app is stronger.
Review and configure recovery options
Add a recovery phone number and a backup email address. These are your lifelines if you get locked out. Don't use the email address you're migrating away from as your recovery email — use a completely independent one that you'll maintain long-term.
Check connected apps and third-party access
In your new account's security settings, review which apps and services have access. Remove any you don't recognize. Going forward, be selective about granting email access — each third-party app with access is a potential entry point if that app is compromised.
Post-Migration Cleanup
Monitor forwarded messages for missed accounts
Check the old inbox weekly for the first month, then monthly. Every forwarded message that isn't spam represents an account you haven't updated yet. Most people discover 5-10 forgotten accounts during the first month of monitoring.
Notify frequent contacts of your new address
Send a brief email from your new address to your 20-30 most frequent contacts. Include both your old and new addresses so they can update their contact cards. People who have you saved as a contact won't see the change automatically.
Download a final archive and close the old account
After 3-6 months with no important forwarded messages, download one last complete archive from the old provider. Then either close the account or keep it as a dormant redirect. If you close it, that email address may eventually become available for someone else to register.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to fully switch to a new email address?
The technical migration takes 1-3 days, but the full transition requires 3-6 months of overlap. During that period, you will update accounts, notify contacts, and catch any services still sending to the old address. The average person has 130-180 online accounts linked to their email, and updating all of them at a pace of 5-10 per day takes 2-4 weeks of active effort.
Will I lose my old emails when switching providers?
Not if you migrate them first. IMAP migration tools copy all emails, folders, and labels from your old account to the new one. Google Takeout exports your entire Gmail archive as .mbox files. Thunderbird (free desktop email client) can drag-and-drop emails between accounts. A 10 GB mailbox takes 2-6 hours to transfer depending on connection speed. Keep the old account active for at least 6 months as a safety net.
What is the best email provider to switch to?
For privacy: ProtonMail (free up to 1 GB, $4/month for 15 GB) offers end-to-end encryption and is based in Switzerland. For productivity: Google Workspace ($6/month) or Microsoft 365 ($6/month) include calendar, storage, and office apps. For a free personal account: Gmail offers 15 GB free storage with strong spam filtering. Fastmail ($5/month) is a solid independent option with excellent search and custom domain support.
Should I use a custom domain for my email address?
A custom domain (like you@yourdomain.com) costs $10-15/year and provides lifetime portability. If you ever switch email providers again, you just repoint the domain's email records and keep the same address. Without a custom domain, switching means starting the entire migration process over. For professionals and freelancers, a custom domain email also looks more credible than a free Gmail or Outlook address.
How do I stop getting emails at my old address after migrating?
Set up email forwarding from the old account to the new one, which takes 2 minutes in most email providers' settings. Then set an auto-reply on the old account informing senders of your new address. After 6 months, forwarded emails should slow to a trickle. At 12 months, download a final archive and close the old account. Closing an account at major providers is permanent — Gmail accounts are deleted after 30 days of the closure request.