Haven’t changed my email since Hotmail was available in 1995 (?).

What i would do, over time, is use my NEW email to reply to existing and new contacts letting them know of the change. Some/most will reply to your last email (new one) and transition will be smooth.

Don’t give up the old, you never know. Maybe referrals will have the old email and not the current.

0-0

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:

I am not sure that I can change my MX record.
I’m not sure that can work for me.

I wouldn't know why this would be a problem unless either you don't own the domain or have control of your DNS.

The MX is changed and then forwarded to your email server.

I see a lot of people who let one entity control everything, DNS, Registrar (Domain), Email, Web.
These entities want to do everything, their way, the easiest way in their best interest, not yours.
This will lead to a massive loss of control of and makes it especially painful in any migration or changes.
The same results can be achieved when you have control of these accounts and I have made them work in every case without a hitch.

Well, it would be very costly to move all my email service over there. About $1743/yr for everything and just about half that for the one business domain. Sure it’s a write-off but I’m not sure it’s worth the cost. The setup and maintenance would also be much more time consuming than my current policy.


I’m not under any control constraints.
Registrar: Epik
DNS: cloudflare
SSL: cloudflare
Email (primary concern): inmotion
Web hosting (minor concern): inmotion
Scheduling and invoicing: yardbook


I’m also not going to be able to use gmail, yahoo, AOL or iCloud as I prefer the email to come from my domain name as it looks more professional.

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:
I started my business back in 2008 and I’ve used the same email address for all this time, info@[elided].com.

First point: Whenever you want to use something other than your real domain name, use "example.com," "example.net," or "example.org." This avoids one inadvertently using a real domain name, as you have in this case. Those domain names are owned by IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) and reserved for, you guessed it, example use

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:
I left godaddy for Epik and in a lapse in judgement, I used my business email to sign up rather than making a forwarder just for Epik.

There's a better way.

Forwarders are problematic because they break SPF (Sender Policy Framework), they sometimes break DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), and breaking either will break DMARC (Domain Message Authentication Reporting). (There are other email mechanisms for which they're problematical, too.)

Instead use "tagged" (aka: "plussed") email addresses whenever possible. Then, if a tagged email address is compromised, you need merely change the tag and, once you've confirmed it's in place, send email sent to the old tagged address to the bit bucket.

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:
Then “anonymous” hacked Epik and released my ... email address to the world. Now I get a ton of spam in my business email box.

While the Epik hack has accelerated the process in your case (probably--see below), it probably would've happened, eventually, anyway.

If you use that email address for common email correspondence odds are it would've been compromised, anyway. Email address list-harvesting malware is rife. All it would have taken is one of your customers or other business contacts' PCs to become infected and Game Over.

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:
How will this affect communication?

Well, you'll have to email every last one of your existing legitimate contacts and inform them of the change. Some will miss it. Some will note it and fail to make the change. Some will mistakenly identify it as spam and toss it.

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:
... is there another common email username that is considered acceptable?

Any common username part in a domain will probably be guessed. If a delivery attempt is made to test it, and delivery is accepted, it'll be tagged by the spammer/scammer as valid, and it'll again be Game Over.

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:
I have over 140 email addresses and the business account is the only one that gets spam.

That's remarkable. Either they're not much used or you've been uncommonly blessed by Fluffy, the Cat God of the Internet.

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:
Unfortunately, I am not sure that I can change my MX record.

If you own the domain and have control of the domain's DNS: Sure you can.

I've been using my same email address since about 1993. Never a problem.

Sure, I get spam, but it goes into my spam folder. No big deal. Spam comes from websites selling, trading your email address, NOT from just existing as an email address.

quote:

Originally posted by ridgerat:
Spam comes from websites selling, trading your email address, ...

This much is true... -ish. Also, as in Mark's case (and mine): Customer databases being compromised.

quote:

Originally posted by ridgerat:
... NOT from just existing as an email address.

This is provably false. Particularly for common username parts.

One other way they get out there is, as I noted, when a correspondent's email address book is scraped. (Most common targets: MS Outlook address books.) Another way is when people inadvisedly post an email address on a web board or put it on a web page for contact purposes.

Back in my active spam-fighting days we used to do all kinds of experiments. (Which was also playing with spammers' heads .) One amusing experiment was to anchor an email address to a one-pixel transparent GIF on a web site and wait to see how long it took for it to get spammed. Sometimes it'd start happening within mere hours.

I've several such spam trap addresses that are still getting spammed to this day, some twenty years later.

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:

Well, it would be very costly to move all my email service over there. About $1743/yr for everything and just about half that for the one business domain.
Sure it’s a write-off but I’m not sure it’s worth the cost.
The setup and maintenance would also be much more time consuming than my current policy.


I’m not under any control constraints.
Registrar: Epik
DNS: cloudflare
SSL: cloudflare
Email (primary concern): inmotion
Web hosting (minor concern): inmotion
Scheduling and invoicing: yardbook


I’m also not going to be able to use gmail, yahoo, AOL or iCloud as I prefer the email to come from my domain name as it looks more professional.

Maybe I am missing something but I don't see how you have to change everything and the implied costs?

In my vision you would log on to cloudfare, change your MX to point to {Spam Portal} then on the {Spam Portal} point to your email server at imotion.

I'm in the position of having to change my e-mail address. Pretty soon I won't have a choice.

In the early days of e-mail back in the '90s, there were a lot of small companies that started up. As time went on, the better run/financed e-mail providers gobbled up the smaller companies. In my case, I started with Netcom. It got bought by Mindspring. Mindspring got bought by Earthlink, which is still running strong.

Things were still going fine for me, because Earthlink had been nice enough to keep the Netcom protocol going for only 10 bucks a month.

But this month, Earthlink notified all of us that because the POP protocol is a dodo and is too much trouble and expense to keep running for a small number of customers, those of us with ix.netcom.com IDs have to find another provider.

So, I set up a gmail account and will soon start the process nhtagmember is going through---notifying everybody I've ever been in e-mail contact with.

Progress can be a PITA....

I've been thinking real hard about running my own email server and giving Gmail the ole heave ho.

I have a Synology NAS and would be surprised if they didn't have that as a function I can add. Seems like it could do everything else, why not that?

quote:

Originally posted by Skull Leader:
I've been thinking real hard about running my own email server and giving Gmail the ole heave ho.

I have a Synology NAS and would be surprised if they didn't have that as a function I can add. Seems like it could do everything else, why not that?

Hmmm. I’ve asked about that in the past and everyone says it’s a pretty bad idea. You really have to actively maintain it and keep it off the blacklists. Seems it’s more work than it’s worth.

You might be right, I just watched a YT video which went though all the pitfalls.

quote:

Originally posted by snoris:
But this month, Earthlink notified all of us that because the POP protocol is a dodo and is too much trouble and expense to keep running for a small number of customers, those of us with ix.netcom.com IDs have to find another provider.

They're not running IMAP(S) on those same servers? That's weird.

I don't think I've run a POP server for... about ten years? Maybe a bit less?

quote:

Originally posted by Skull Leader:
I've been thinking real hard about running my own email server and giving Gmail the ole heave ho.

You have to have a static IP address. The expense, even the possibility, of acquiring one is dependent upon the ISP.

One maybe can get by without a static IP by using dynamic DNS, but that doesn't make for high reliability and many mail servers will not accept email from servers in known dynamic IP address space.

Then there's the administration of the mail server, which is relatively trivial for someone like me who's done it for years. Maybe not so much for someone who has not.

I'm in the same boat, for a different reason. My ISP is the email domain, but I'd like to switch to a cheaper provider. Verizon has been running deals with a huge reduction in the monthly. I could easily open a gmail address, and could plug that into the Outlook email box. But, still left with that email address sitting out there and I don't know what the jilted ISP will do with the defunct email address, if a forward could be established, etc.

quote:

Originally posted by snoris:
<snip>
But this month, Earthlink notified all of us that because the POP protocol is a dodo and is too much trouble and expense to keep running for a small number of customers, those of us with ix.netcom.com IDs have to find another provider.
<snip>

fastmail.com supports the POP3 download protocol. I’ve used it exclusively since 2001. POP3 only supports one email client. For me, that’s a client on my MacBook. But fastmail provides a web interface that’s very good. That’s what I use on my iPhone. I use it far more than the email client on my MacBook.

POP3 is a simple protocol.

Not sure of your setup, but I use Google Workspace for my domains, and you essentially have customized gmail. Google is very good at filtering out spam.

quote:

Originally posted by Dallas239:
Not sure of your setup, but I use Google Workspace for my domains, and you essentially have customized gmail. Google is very good at filtering out spam.

i used Google workspace for almost a year before I started having delivery issues. Plus it only covers one email address. I had to temporarily suspend a large number of addresses to use it. Didn’t work out for me.

Mark, if you don't mind my asking: Why do you have so many email addresses?

I've been on-line since before there was an Internet--commercial or otherwise. My very first email address was a UUCP bang-path address. I haven't had 1/10th that many email addresses in all those years combined, much less all at one time.

Exception: Unless you count differently-tagged email addresses as different email addresses. Then I've probably a good deal more than that.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by snoris:
But this month, Earthlink notified all of us that because the POP protocol is a dodo and is too much trouble and expense to keep running for a small number of customers, those of us with ix.netcom.com IDs have to find another provider.

They're not running IMAP(S) on those same servers? That's weird.

I don't think I've run a POP server for... about ten years? Maybe a bit less?
[

I did talk to Earthlink about running IMAPs on the old POP servers. They said it was because 1) POPs are such old technology that upgrading isn't worth the cost for the few customers still using it, 2) nothing on POP servers can be upgraded anymore, and 3) what was in place probably couldn't be fixed if it crashed.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
Mark, if you don't mind my asking: Why do you have so many email addresses?

I've been on-line since before there was an Internet--commercial or otherwise. My very first email address was a UUCP bang-path address. I haven't had 1/10th that many email addresses in all those years combined, much less all at one time.

Exception: Unless you count differently-tagged email addresses as different email addresses. Then I've probably a good deal more than that.

Yeah, it’s the same idea as tagged email addresses. I don’t use tags as I have unlimited forwarders. Every site with a login gets its own email address. Well, except this one time when it mattered. :sigh:

Edit - i just counted all of my email addresses. It’s far more than I estimated before.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mark123,

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
Mark, if you don't mind my asking: Why do you have so many email addresses?

Yeah, it’s the same idea as tagged email addresses. I don’t use tags as I have unlimited forwarders.

To each their own, but, by your own admission, by doing that you've kind of limited where you can go for a new email provider.

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:
Edit - i just counted all of my email addresses. It’s far more than I estimated before.

I've 482 entries in my keyring. The vast majority have associated with them uniquely-tagged email addresses. There are a few non-online-account entries and a few duplicate tags. I'd say those comprise no more than 20% of the entries--just guesstimating it.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by mark123: Yeah, it’s the same idea as tagged email addresses. I don’t use tags as I have unlimited forwarders.

To each their own, but, by your own admission, by doing that you've kind of limited where you can go for a new email provider.

I’m not sure I understand what you mean.

I’m not sure tagging offers the same security as using unique email addresses. Anyone that got the Epik list surely stripped out the tags. Unless you specifically don’t allow email addresses without a tag to be delivered.