Unfortunately you are correct. Although suggestions are very much appreciated, I am none the wiser, being a bit of a novice!! The GMail appears more straightforward, but I am not sure quite how to implement and what it entails. Thank you also for your insight!! Any suggestions would be helpful. Thank you

In reply to a post by MaggieMagpie:

Unfortunately you are correct. Although suggestions are very much appreciated, I am none the wiser, being a bit of a novice!! The GMail appears more straightforward, but I am not sure quite how to implement and what it entails. Thank you also for your insight!! Any suggestions would be helpful. Thank you

People here, myself included, tend to not see the wood for the trees........

1. Go to Google.com and set up an E-mail account for yourself.
2. Inform all your regular contacts of your new E-mail address.
3. Go into your existing BT E-Mail account and search and find how to forward your BT E-mail to another account - from that moment on, all E-mails will be forwarded to your Gmail address.

Here's what may be the tricky bit:- How do you currently access your BT mail?

So your options so far are:

1. Pay for BT Premium mail

2. Pay for a domain with email for example at www.123-reg.co.uk

3 Sign up for free webmail with Google at www.gmail.com

4. Sign up for free webmail with Microsoft at www.outlook.com

etc

In reply to a post by Stevenage_Neil:

You don't think the NSA and GCHQ scan private domains? If I were in the security service, private domains/web sites would be high on my monitoring list!

like most things I suggest, I get ridiculed each time I mention this, but I find it an excellent service as secure as you can expect in this day and age. https://www.unseen.is/

Thunderbird

Just configure Thunderbird to include your Gmail address - all done!

(A few hints on using Gmail:-

Gmail stores everything:- If you "delete" something from your Inbox it will still be retained in
"Bin", Trash", or "Recycle". You have to open the appropriate one and delete to finally get rid of it. Same for "Sent Mail".

Not really a problem.)

Now I'm confused!

You do realise that Neil's idea is to ditch your BT email address soon after leaving them? I'm not sure how long BT keep it open these days.

This indicates there may be a problem https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/thunderbird-and...

Have a look at the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxbIi2DpRmc

https://accounts.google.com/SignUp?service=mail&cont...

http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/goodtoknow/online-sa...

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/thunderbird-and... (just noticed BatBoy has already linked to this )

Edited by Apprentice (Fri 02-Jan-15 19:39:00)

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

This indicates there may be a problem https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/thunderbird-and...

The article suggests enabling "Access for less secure apps" in Gmail.

Although this works, I prefer to enable 2-step verification and generate an "app password", since this provides better account security.