How to move or transfer email accounts from one ISP to another

Posted on November 12, 2007 at 1:25 pm

Are you looking for a way to move your email account from Outlook to Yahoo or maybe from AOL to Hotmail? If you’re not familiar with the tech details, it can be quite an arduous task to move from one email ISP account to another, if not impossible. So if you want to transfer your account info, emails, tasks, calendar items, address book and contacts, etc to a new email provider, there’s a cool web service you should check out.

TrueSwitch is a service that allows you to easily switch between email providers by copying all of your data from the old Internet email account to the new one, automatically notifying all contacts of your new email address, and automatically canceling your old account.

trueswtich

TruesSwitch works with many Internet Service Providers, including AOL, AT&T, Comcast, CompuServe, Cox Cable, Earthlink, Hotmail, Juno, MSN, NetZero, RoadRunner, SBC Yahoo!, and Yahoo! It also works with stand-alone programs such as Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, and AOL.

Also, if you’re switching to one of their partners, the whole process is completely free. Their partners include Yahoo, AT&T, Verizon and Comcast. If you’re switching to any other service, the fee is about $20, but that’s not too bad if you really want to switch, but have tons of stuff you would not want to lose.

true switch

Here are the major features of this service:

  • Copy – Whether the data is stored on the web site or in your desktop application, TrueSwitch will copy your emails, address book, calendar events, and favorites.
  • Notify – TrueSwitch can send an email out to everyone on your contact list telling them about the new email address. You can also personalize this email.
  • Forward – TrueSwitch can check your old email account for 30 days and forward all of your emails to your new account.
  • Cancel – TrueSwitch can help you cancel your old Internet account, like AOL, etc.

Also, TrueSwitch will copy all attachments that you may have stored in your emails. You can also use TrueSwitch to move your chat data between different IM messengers.

In order to use TrueSwitch, you will need to download and install a client application on to your computer. You enter in the user name and password for both the old account and the new one and follow the instructions in the wizard. A transfer can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 24 hours, depending on the amount of data.

» Filed Under Computer Tips

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Comments

35 Responses to “How to move or transfer email accounts from one ISP to another”

  1. ram said on : November 13th, 2007 at 9:37 am

    This is an interesting and quite useful tool. Nice find
    BTW delete the first comment, there is some problem with the comment form


  2. Cheryl Gracia said on : November 20th, 2007 at 11:41 pm

    I want to switch my email over to another user name. I’m not really computer literate, but I’m convinced that my ex-boyfriend has downloaded many wizards to allow him to access my computer and change pertinent information. I tried to do a “true switch” a couple of weeks ago and it didn’t allow me to go from Verizon to comcast. Can you suggest the steps to follow so I can access my own “private” sites again… thanks so much!

    Cheryl


  3. Judy said on : December 9th, 2007 at 6:21 pm

    Only problem with True Switch is I can’t get it work.

    I also cannot get anyone at True Switch Customer service to answer my email.

    I finally deleted the program from my computer and am doing 400+ emails the old fashioned way.


  4. LEN said on : January 7th, 2008 at 1:58 pm

    CAN I USE TRUE SWITCH TO TRANSFER MY AOL ADDRESS BOOK FROM AOL TO OUTLOOK EXPRESS?


  5. Russ Alme said on : January 8th, 2008 at 1:03 pm

    I have been trying for 2 days to get someone to help me get from netzero to live.com. No luck!!!


  6. alice said on : March 20th, 2008 at 8:18 am

    i cant find roadrunner where i need to transfer to.i can find my old carrier to transfer from,but rr doesnt show up,any suggestions?


  7. akishore said on : March 20th, 2008 at 2:30 pm

    Russ, Alice – You can try calling TrueSwitch customer support and see if they can help you out. If you don’t see the option in the list they may not support that email service.


  8. bob said on : May 11th, 2008 at 9:45 pm

    Can Trueswitch transfer contacts between ATT.Yahoo and MS Outlook?


  9. Maria Fonseca said on : July 11th, 2008 at 9:23 am

    CAN TRUESWITCH TRANSFER MY OLD AOL ADDRESS E-MAIL ACCT. AND ADDRESS BOOK TO MY YAHOO ADDRESS? MARIA C. FONSECA


  10. diane silvestri said on : September 29th, 2008 at 6:32 pm

    can I transfer all my folders and address book (without opening and sending each one) from sbcglobal.net to sunflower.com?


  11. Joe M. said on : December 1st, 2008 at 11:14 am

    I recently switched from Comcast to Verizon FIOS. I was told of the ability to use trueswitch for my family to switch their email over. A week later, and this response from Verizon Tech Support and it still doesn’t work:

    Hello TrueSwitch Customer,

    Thank you for writing to TrueSwitch Customer Support regarding your concern.

    We understand that you have not received the copied emails.

    We apologize for the inconvenience caused to you due to this issue.

    We would like to inform you that all these copied emails will feature in a different folder named ‘Comcast_Mails’ in your new email account.

    We would therefore kindly request you to login to your new email account and verify the same. Do revert if you still face any problem regarding the switch so performed.

    Hope we have provided the information you needed.

    Please feel free to reply to us should you need any further assistance, we will be glad to assist you.


  12. janet pelczynski said on : December 10th, 2008 at 5:07 pm

    How can I switch my g mail address book to verizon or comcast. or switch my verizon address book to comcast.


  13. morgan said on : March 10th, 2009 at 6:55 pm

    Im chaning my hotmail email but i dont want to loose all my emails what can i do other than emailing myself all of em?


  14. sha said on : March 25th, 2009 at 5:07 am

    this really useful! thank you!


  15. Soumen said on : April 13th, 2009 at 5:56 am

    Thanks for providing such a useful tool.
    It’s easy to use.
    But be careful before using this kind of service.
    Please remove any kind of sensitive or confidential mails from inbox as well as sent items and also from custom folders. Otherwise it may cause problems in future.


  16. Barb said on : May 12th, 2009 at 8:53 am

    I have used trueswitch in the past several times, and am about to use it again for the 5th time it works great! you don’t have to let all your contacts know your new address if you don’t want. There was once that I had to set it up twice because I had a lot to transfer, so try it.. it works and it’s safe.. if you have a lot of data be patient reset it up if toy have to, and it will go.


  17. Marty Johnson said on : June 25th, 2009 at 9:25 am

    can i transfer everything from marty8378@charter.net to martyj51@gmail.com without having to open all my folders and doing them one at a time?


  18. Don said on : August 11th, 2009 at 11:07 am

    Please help me. I used TrueSwitch through my msn account to transfer my aol mail to msn. It moved all my incoming mail and left no copy at AOL. I tried contacting trueswitch many many times but they don’t help. In fact they say they have no records of a switch with my email names. Possibly because I have a free msn account. My question is how do I stop future emails from going to my msn account and how do I get my old aol emails sent back to aol. Please help


  19. RR said on : August 18th, 2009 at 1:22 pm

    I would love to use TrueSwitch but because I’m a Mac user, it’s not possible. I’m trying to transfer email acct. info from AT&T to Comcast. What can I do – is there a service that Mac users can access?


  20. mark verrell said on : August 19th, 2009 at 11:55 pm

    i sure would like to know how to trasfer the entire contents of email folders at once, anyone know how to do this?


  21. BigD said on : October 14th, 2009 at 7:44 am

    True Switch is a joke – don’t look for any help from their support desk – they have failed to respond to any email message that I have sent to them and there is no published phone number to contact them either. Email folders did not transfer and emails continue to be sent to old email address instead of being forwarded as advertised. Do yourself a favor – Look somewhere else for help with this process.


  22. Joe Breen said on : November 12th, 2009 at 12:16 pm

    I would like to quit doing business with Surfbest and have all my email transferred automatically to either my AOL, Yahoo or Google address. Is it possible, where someone writes to surfbest I will receive it at the newly selected account ? Will all my contacts/sources be notified? What would be the timing on cancelling the surfbest service. Your help is appreciated. Thank you.

    Joe


  23. Indybrett said on : December 7th, 2009 at 10:12 am

    Trueswitch is joke. If you can use it for free, fine. If you have to pay for it, save your money.

    I tried using it to migrate from one well known provider to another well known provider. Out of 40,000 emails, about 2000 copied. I then got the message that it had complete, and thanks for my business. Tried again with a different provider, same result. Emailed Trueswitch and got one response saying sorry. After that… crickets.


  24. Ed T. said on : January 31st, 2010 at 9:54 pm

    Our Comcast E-mails suddenly were tranferred into Outlook Express. How do we get them back into Comcast E-mails?


  25. Taylor said on : March 16th, 2010 at 1:37 pm

    Ok this didn’t work! I had a ton of contacts and now I don’t have any in the new email client! What did I do wrong? How can I transfer all the contacts between my email accounts? Thanks.


  26. Anders Vinther said on : March 25th, 2010 at 11:24 am

    As an alternative you can use IMAP to transfer your email from one account to another.

    This can also be used to merge email from two or more email clients (which can be on the same or different computers).

    If you are currently using a web mail provider create a Gmail account and use the Import feature to pull all your old email into Gmail.

    If you have your old email locally on a computer follow these steps:

    - create a Gmail account and enable IMAP
    - create a new IMAP account on your old email client (e.g.) Thunderbird) to connect to your new Gmail account
    - copy your locally stored email to the IMAP account
    - on your new computer create a similar IMAP account on your new email client (e.g. Outlook or Apple Mail).

    Now you can copy your old emails from the IMAP account to your local folders (POP) on the new computer – or stay with the IMAP solution with the benefits that gives you (automatically synchronizing email on multiple computers, accessing your email from Gmail when you’re away from your computer etc). With the second option you would copy the emails from your new computer to the IMAP account to have all emails in one account.

    If you do not wish to use Gmail you can use another IMAP capable email account or simply delete your Gmail account once the transfer is complete.

    I have written an article on how to transfer email using IMAP here: Easy-Email.net/transfer-email

    I hope this helps.

    Cheers,

    Anders

    Disclosure: I run the http://www.Easy-Email.net web site. All the information required to get this to work is free to download.


  27. Don said on : June 6th, 2010 at 9:02 am

    can i transfer my netzero.com email address book over to charter email?


  28. Allen said on : June 14th, 2010 at 7:30 pm

    TrueSwitch is a joke. Because of them, I now have one account with half of my emails. When your write their “Customer Support,” they promise a reply in 1.5 days. You will hear from them in five. And then they answer you with a form letter with grammar errors asking you useless questions–then you wait a couple of more days while nothing happens.

    Then they close your account.


  29. Kay said on : June 15th, 2010 at 10:46 pm

    TrueSwitch was a disaster, transferring half my files and then stopping. Nothing worked after that and I was left in limbo. You have to wait days and days for responses from their Customer Service, which has no clue what to do. I’m still waiting for a refund and looking for another service.


  30. Kay said on : June 17th, 2010 at 11:47 am

    After my disaster with “TrueSwitch” (previous post–and still waiting for the refund) I was able to easily transfer all my files using YippieMove. Fast, efficient–and instead of an idiot screen that says only, “No Messages,” you get real time reports and graphs showing you right how things are going.


  31. Ramblin Rose said on : July 13th, 2010 at 6:59 pm

    TrueSwitch wanted to charge a fee to transfer from verizon.net to yahoo.com. “Free” my foot!!


  32. Eileen said on : October 29th, 2010 at 6:00 pm

    I cant get True Switch to work. I tried numerous times trying to go from Juno.com to Comcast.net.

    Get message running but nothing every happens each time.

    Rebooted, reloaded program, Comcast could not help either.

    Don’t know how to get help directly for my problem

    Help!


  33. Phil B said on : November 4th, 2010 at 5:44 pm

    I used the service and only 5 of my 50 contacts trasferred


  34. Thomas Skouros said on : July 21st, 2011 at 10:12 pm

    How can I transfer Folders,address books, and other stored info to my new Lenovo Q150 ideacentre?


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  1. The best way to switch to a new email address Says:

    [...] I wrote about a service called TrueSwitch that charges a fee, but will transfer all of your email from one service provider to another, like Hotmail to Gmail or Yahoo Mail to Gmail, [...]

    November 25th, 2008 at 12:18 am
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