Some 5 years ago, when we set up our account with our local ISP here in Austria, I set up email addresses for my wife and me as aliases for a somewhat anonymously named mailbox provided by our ISP. Up until now it hasn't been a problem - I use Outlook as a mail client and have set up a number of rules to separate out our emails. The side effect is that when we use webmail, e.g. when we are away from home, signing on to this mailbox shows emails for both of us. Not a problem, there's nothing private there.
But now I am thinking of getting a smartphone, I'd rather like to see only my own emails on my phone. This means that in an ideal world, I would set up another mailbox (once again, not a problem, I already have a second one for our business email address) and reassign my own email address to this mailbox after deleting the alias on the shared one. Now, what I'm unclear about, and can't after much googling find an answer to, is it likely to cause any problems in the big wide world if I delete the alias, and then reuse the same email address for the second mailbox? Will I perhaps lose a few mails in the intervening time - I'm assuming that I'd need to leave perhaps a day between the two parts of the change?
I could obviously just set up a new email address with a different name, but I'd really rather not. Any commentss? Is it in reality a question for my ISP rather than, as I'm assuming, more general?
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If you are asking whether you can create a new email account with your ISP (let's take that bit as a given) and then use an alias on that new account that you have already used on a different account in on the same domain, then I don't think there will be a generic answer.
Once used, I think email addresses tend to be unavailable to a different account but in your case it is the same account, presumably.
The easiest way to find out is probably to try it. Maybe create a disposable alias and try it with that first - there is a possibility in my mind that you could delete it, then find that you can reuse it on neither the old or the new account.
I'd be inclined to use a non-ISP account such as gmail, or a domain of your own, and to rely on forwarding from the old account based on your rules from here on.
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>> I'd be inclined to use a non-ISP account such as gmail, or a domain of
>> your own, and to rely on forwarding from the old account based on your rules
>> from here on.
>>
I'm not sure I expressed myself clearly, but your suggestion of creating an alias on my existing mailbox (i.e., the same mailbox that already has two aliases), making sure that works, then deleting and resurrecting it with its own mailbox, is the safest option and an excellent idea as proof of concept (or not :-)), thank you. I'll give it a whirl.
I don't really want to start using a completely different email address, I've been using the old one for a long time and it would be a pain to change (some of the administrative stuff for our business address is linked in with it). I already have a gmail account, which forwards on to the one I'm trying to migrate.
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 4 Mar 15 at 01:02
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I'm not sure I either understand your question completely or that I know how it will work exactly.
As I understand it e-mail is delivered to;
Username ( a particular inbox) @ Domain Name (defined as being owned by someone)
So, for example, if someone sent an e-mail to clever_bloke@outlook.com it would first find out where "outlook.com" was registered and then send the email there. On receipt, outlook.com would decide that whilst it didn't have a user called clever_bloke, it did have a note that such emails should be forwarded to No_FM2R and so it delivers.
On receipt, NO_FM2R also has some rules which decide which folder the email should be moved to.
If I wanted to go further and have clever_bloke@good_looking_too.com to arrive in my inbox, then either I or Microsoft would have to obtain the rights to the domain good_looking_too.com and then set up forwarding rules.
And so to your question;
Lets say that currently its...
MikeH@clever_name.isp.com
which is pointing at;
blah@isp.com
And you would prefer that it pointed at;
work_blah@isp.com
Then that is a matter for your isp and you would need to talk to them about their approach. Although I wouldn't expect it to be a problem beyond the time lapse that such a change might take.
But if you wanted to point
MikeH@clever_name.isp.com
to
MikeH@clever_name.different_isp.com
Then you are what is known in technical circles as screwed because you cannot control the behaviour of someone else's domain.
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And was it me then I would;
1) set up rule-based forwarding rules to send email to your new email which will sole immediate problems
2) keep telling people as and when to use new email address which will resolve the issue over time.
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I'm obviously not explaining myself very well. I mentioned using Outlook rules in my original post, these are not really relevant except to explain why I haven't had a problem to date.
Emails to both MikeH@my_isp.com and MrsMikeH@my_isp.com all go into a single mailbox, which is actually called 12345@my_isp.com. The latter is my real mailbox name, which happens to be my customer number. The aliases that I set up cause the real mailbox to receive all emails directed to those addresses. I can log into this mailbox using any of the three email addresses and appropriate passwords, and will see emails sent to any of the three addresses because they are in the same physical repository.
Emails to Mikes_Business@my_isp.com go into a separate mailbox I've created, which is also linked to my account with the ISP. I can only sign into this mailbox using this email address, and will only see emails sent to that address.
What I want to do, is to delete the alias MikeH@my_isp.com from the real mailbox called 12345@my_isp.com, and then create a new mailbox for this same email address, so that it only contains emails for this email address.
I hope this is clearer. It seems the safest thing to do is to try Manatee's suggestion.
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As I said, I think that's not an issue, but it is a matter for your ISP.
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Seems my ISP has taken all this into account, I have been browsing the "Administer Mailbox" function, but unfortunately, and quite rightly, it's all in German. I am currently trying a few things out, to make sure that my understanding of how it works is correct (my German is pretty reasonable, but I want to make sure I'm not missing a trick!).
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I doubt whether it will help anyone else, but I proved I can do what I need as follows:
1. Set up test account name as alias for original mailbox
2. Set up second mailbox, with no aliases (email addresses) directed at it
3. Delete alias
4. Reassign same alias name to new mailbox set up in stage 2
All works fine, I just need a quiet time to do the same for the real email address I want to move. and having done 4, there was a brief time interval of around 30 minutes (which my ISP kindly told me about) when the email address was flagged up as being non-existent.
There were some more complex mailbox administration options which I didn't fully understand to do with mail forwarding, but quite impressed with what's available.
Thanks to everyone for their comments, and Manatee for his excellent suggestion of a test email address.
Last edited by: Mike H on Thu 5 Mar 15 at 13:42
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Moving email address to different mailbox - Manatee
