What is the process of moving an email account? I want to shift my email address from Hotmail to Gmail. Is this even possible and, if so, is it easy? I would like to know your take on this issue.
Elizabeth Walker
Moving an email account from one service to another (or even the same one), is quite like relocating to another residence. Yes, it’s feasible… but is it easy? The answer depends on how desperate you are to shift the email address as well as your proficiency with computers.
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OK, you don’t need to be an IT guru, though a decent knowledge in computers is definitely a requirement. But that shouldn’t be a hindrance once your mind has been made up because this post provides tips on how to properly move your email account .
What do you need to do to shift the email address?
Though, the reasons to shift an email address might be varied, the process ideally involves the following steps (in order). Please click on the links to know more.
- Get a new email address.
- Move all the email account contacts information to the new account.
- Transfer all the email messages from the old to the new account.
- Notify everyone in your contact list of the change in email address.
- If you’d used it for a fairly long time, the email address would be known to many more people beside the ones in your contact list. You need to keep the old account alive and ensure that messages from it are forwarded to the new email address. This way you won’t be missing out on important correspondence.
- Delete the old email account when you are confident that people who matter now have your new online contact information. Important: This is an optional step. You can continue maintaining the old account but remember that an email address expires if one doesn’t long in once in a while.
Shift Hotmail email address to Gmail
Since there are various types of email accounts, the steps above, though correct, were not specific to the needs of Elizabeth Walker who wanted to shift Hotmail email address to Gmail. Here are the instructions, assuming that she already has email accounts at the two free email services.
- Import Hotmail contacts to Gmail: You don’t have to populate the Gmail contacts list manually. Simply take advantage of the export and import functions at the email services.
- Get Hotmail email on Gmail: The next step is to make sure that messages received on Hotmail are transferred (automatically) to Gmail. The easy option is to forward the emails to Gmail, but at the time of writing, this is not allowed on free Hotmail accounts – messages can only be forwarded to other Live domains. However, there is a way out. We can use the Hotmail POP3 settings and add the account to Gmail. This, in my opinion, is a better option that forwarding.
- Create a group of your present contacts in Gmail.
- Send an email to a group using Gmail: Inform people of your new email address.
- Delete the Hotmail email account or keep maintaining it; it’s your call.
How much time will it take to move the email account?
People often ask how much time it takes to shift the email address. This all depends on how quickly you are able to go through the steps listed above. However, deleting a Hotmail account permanently will take a longer time. Though you can close the account from your end, the service still does not remove it entirely and keeps it inactive for about 90 days (as far as I know).
How do I “Transfer all the email messages from the old to the new account”?
It really depends on the type of email and how you’ve been using it. Generally, you can forward the messages or ‘add’ the old email account to the new one – check out how to get Hotmail email on Gmail, for example.